


could I? should I?

by Trojie



Series: the ghost of you [1]
Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Anxiety, Insomnia, M/M, Polyamory, RPF, Revenge Era, Sibling Incest, Threesome - M/M/M, Tour Bus, Unsafe Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2016-12-05
Packaged: 2018-09-06 15:04:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 42,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8757325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: The Ghost of You video throws Mikey, but he was already off his game.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [immoral_crow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/immoral_crow/gifts).



> We all know this isn't real. I know it, you know it, and if you happen to actually be mentioned by name herein, congratulations on your AO3 login and the back button is probably somewhere up and to the left in your browser window. 
> 
> Immoral_crow is wholly responsible for coaxing this from a single paragraph languishing on my phone to the Epic Monstrosity (working title) it became. She's also responsible for it being in something approaching coherent English. Ilu bb <333

Sometimes Gerard's lyrics give Mikey questions he can't sum up the courage to ask.

***

The sea, too cold and too grey and too fucking early in the morning, slaps at the side of the landing craft. Again. The stupid thing has already filled with water and nearly drowned them all once today. Mikey looks down at his hands, which are crabbed up in his lap, elbow tight around the plastic-wrapped rifle over his shoulder, and wonders what the fuck his life has turned into, and when he can get a fucking drink.

Marc yells for action and Mikey can't help flinching. The bow ramp drops into the water and they literally charge. It's fucking nuts.

Look, Mikey plays bass, right? That's supposed to translate to a God-given right, during music videos, performances, and any interviews he's too hungover to give a fuck about, to turn his back to the camera, pull the Bass Player Face (™) and just concentrate on chugging along, right? The drama is supposed to be for Gerard and Ray. And Frank, in the specific context of MCR, because do _you_ want to explain to Frank Iero that rhythm guitar doesn't get to put one foot up on a foldback and work a crowd? Hah.

Except. Ray is about the least ridiculous lead guitarist Mikey's ever seen, even with the hair, but Gerard is made of 100% pure case-hardened melodrama and Mikey is his brother, and music magazines have been weird about brothers being in bands together since Oasis went completely to shit. So instead of getting to shuffle to the back of photoshoots by virtue of being (slightly) taller than Frank and not being Gerard or Ray, Mikey finds himself far too frequently at front and centre. He doesn't like it. Instead of getting to turn his back on the camera in music videos, he has actual things to do. This never happened to Steve Harris.

Mikey likes _playing music_. He likes the noise that fills up his head, and he likes the reverb that fills up his lungs, He likes getting out of his head on adrenaline and booze and anything else that's on offer, and he likes getting destroyed in moshpits, not that he gets to do that any more, now that they play proper stages with security guards.

What he doesn't like is how, instead of their music video 'plots' (and he's still confused about how fast they went from living out of a stanky van to making music videos) being about Gerard and Ray, with the others relegated to the back row as God intended, Mikey finds himself doing things like adjusting his glasses in sea spray ready to participate in an honest to God tactical beach assault and then pretend to die of a gunshot wound.

Mikey's not much of an actor. Not that he needs to be. The brief is just that he's supposed to be nervous, and he doesn't really need to fake that. The fake rifle is fucking heavy, and as they all get up to leave the LCA he fumbles it. He trips when they hit the soft sand, in the chaos of all the extras and the churning seawater and the noise. And then the pyro pots start going off, imitating shells, and even though he was at the safety briefing yesterday and he made sure to listen to all the stuff about timings, it's fucking terrifying.

If he just hits all his marks he won't be in any danger of being near them, but still. Pyro pots. They've just started using pyrotechnics occasionally on stage, now they're playing bigger venues, and Mikey thinks they look fucking awesome but he can't say he likes the idea of getting too close. In so many more ways than one, James Hetfield is both a good example and a horrible fucking warning to young musicians.

So he charges as much as he can, flounders mostly, up the beach, falling more than the script actually calls for, but he does manage to make his marks - and then he feels the pop of the squib hidden in his uniform, and for a second his heart stops.

It doesn't hurt, exactly, but he forgot it in the last take as well, and the take before that, and it's still enough of a shock to make him lurch, panic that he's fucking up the shot and they'll have to reset _again_ \- and then he remembers he's supposed to be dying anyway, and just goes with it.

Two seconds later Ray's entire fucking weight lands on his chest.

The explosions are still going off around them and far away Mikey can hear Gerard screaming something, probably the lyrics, he's actually supposed to be singing right now, and Marc is saying something to Ray and Ray's in Mikey's face.

'You're dead, Mikey!' he yells, and fumbles bandages out of his costume, shoving them at Mikey's fake gunshot wounds and putting even more pressure down, hard but slightly rhythmic, like he's trying CPR out of desperate, half-remembered hope. Like Mikey really actually is dying, or something.

Mikey just lets the sand take him, lets Ray push him down, and pretends to be dead and that it isn't weirdly comforting to be able to just finally be still and quiet in the middle of this utter fucking chaos. He makes eye contact with Ray, who looks halfway between blind panic and hysterical laughter.

This goddamn video is … kinda far out, even for them. Carrying coffins around and Gerard all made up and screaming like a vampire panda? Sure. Par for the course. Goes with that band aesthetic they're supposed to have.

Kicking a high school football mascot in the head? Sure. Actually weirdly cathartic.

Reenacting the D-day landings? Maybe a little over the top.

They did all the other stuff yesterday, playing the song in uniform, their hair gelled down til it actually stayed (difficult for all of them to achieve, really, except Bob and his buzzcut), so today they're just doing the beach assault part. Mikey dies over and over, about four times maybe? Until the crew get all the shots they want and the sun is starting to sink towards the horizon.

'Cut!' yells Marc, for what seems to be the final time given how everyone suddenly starts packing up, and Ray offers Mikey a hand, pulls him up out of the little Mikey-shaped hole he'd managed to start digging with his shoulders and hips and Ray's bodyweight on top of him. He's almost sad to leave it, but the promise of a cold one and cleaning the sand off is too good to resist.

Turns out it's not so much cleaning the sand off as cleaning it out - Mikey has sand in places he's never contemplated sand being before, and everything that isn't sand is fake blood and sweat, fifty percent of which is probably Ray's, which, gross. But they go out for a few drinks afterwards, at least. Toast the video.

Gerard toasts with soda water. Mikey drinks more than he should. But what the hell? They're done in Malibu. Time to go home, or at least back on tour, but that's close enough. Familiar enough. The ache in his thighs from tourbus bunk cramps, the way he watches his nights through the microscope-lenses of vodka bottle bottoms, the permanent bruise on his right shoulder from his bass strap and the one on his hip from the transmitter for his amp, that's life now. That and hundreds of screaming kids, and smears of Gerard's corpse-like stage makeup fucking everywhere, and the rib-rattling adrenaline of going on stage.

It's better than anything else Mikey has ever done. He can't believe it's his job. And it scares the fucking shit out of him.

***

When Marc sends them the final cut of the Ghost of You video and it holds and ends on Gerard's horror-stricken face, zooms in on his eyeball so tight it's uncomfortable and kind of gross, the questions Mikey had about the _lyrics_ are obliterated under the weight of the questions about the video itself.

Because what. The fuck.

Mikey didn't see a lot of what was happening with Gerard, Frank and Bob - he was busy being squashed in the name of period-accurate first aid by Ray. But now he's sitting down in a hotel room, five shows into the current tour, already in debt to the tune of about four night's worth of sleep, and freshly showered for the first time in three days, and watching Frank and Bob hold Gerard back as he, Mikey, apparently dies and Gerard absolutely fucking loses his shit over it. There's no sound to the screaming but you don't have to be a lipreader to know that Gerard's screaming Mikey's name, over and over, until he can't scream any more - Mikey, Mikey, _Mikey-_

Should have been Ray. Then it would have been a normal music video. Vocals and lead guitar in the starring roles. That would have been obviously fictional.

And this should be obviously fictional. But something about the grey distance of beachhead between Mikey's onscreen corpse and Gerard's onscreen freakout is real, and Mikey knows it.

So they finish watching the video and everyone else is excitedly talking about airplay and single sales, but Mikey just sort of sits and stares. And they all get up, and they all go get coffee, and the others talk, planning the technical rehearsal tomorrow at the venue, and Mikey tries to join in but it won't leave his head. He's seen Gerard have bad dreams from the outside - woken him up from nightmares more than once - but that was like watching Gerard have a bad dream from the inside.

Mikey's been watching Gerard his whole life. But since they came back from Japan, _everyone_ has been watching Gerard, and Gerard has been pretending that it doesn't bother him, but deep down he's like Mikey. He likes to pick his moment to be the centre of attention.

Pretending nothing's wrong means they still all squeeze into one hotel room (Ray, Frank and Bob's, usually, because there tend to be less clothes all over the fucking floor) on nights they're actually in hotels, and stay up talking shit and drinking.

Gerard sticks to soda, and pretends it doesn't bother him.

It bothers Mikey, in a weird kinda way, but Mikey isn't the one with the problem here, so if Gerard says it's okay, then Mikey has gotta back him up, right? Not make it _more_ weird by making some kind of stand about it. Mikey wraps his hands around the glass bottle he's holding and stares at it, right up until there's a sudden lurch of the sofa under him and he looks up to find Frank sitting next to him.

'Spill,' he says, raising an eyebrow.

Mikey is, however, winner and still champion of the World Eyebrow Raising Games, so he just returns Frank's serve and waits.

'You can tell me now. Or I can just wait til you finish that beer, and move onto the hard stuff,' says Frank. 'Because by the end of tonight you know you'll spill without me having to even ask. Might as well do it with some dignity, man.'

'Fuck you,' says Mikey easily, wriggling an inch over so that Frank's not actually plastered up against his side. 'I'm not that much of a fucking lightweight.'

Frank just shoves in closer as Mikey tries to escape. He slings one arm around Mikey's shoulders and uses the other to reach out and grab Mikey's beer. Mikey grabs for it back, but Frank is full of low cunning and deceit, and manages to drain the rest of the beer and get Mikey into a headlock with one of Frank's legs somehow twisting both of Mikey's up so he can't even kick him in the shins.

 _'Spill,_ Mikey Way,' says Frank, barely out of breath. 'Don't make me give you a wedgie.'

But Gerard is across the room with his chin on one hand, nodding very seriously as Ray is talking, and it's probably about a goddamn movie or something but he's right there, and as Mikey watches, Gerard's eyes flick to him, and he can't. Can't spill his guts when his brother is right there, asking questions with his eyes.

'Not here,' Mikey says.

He can't see Frank's face like this but Gerard's eyeline shifts up three inches. Great. Now they're all looking at each other and Ray is still talking about … who even knows. Something he's very excited about, anyway, giant hands flailing as he gestures, and Bob's taken over Gerard's role at Nodding Seriously.

'Your room,' says Frank, letting Mikey go all at once and then catching him by the shoulder before he can fall onto the carpet like a puppet with its strings cut. Gerard raises an eyebrow (better than Frank, but still not as good as Mikey, undisputed heavyweight king of eyebrow game), and Mikey shrugs, mimes air guitar as universally understood code for 'we wanna go talk shop', and Gerard nods, waves him off, but doesn't stop watching as they leave.

Mikey can feel Gerard's stare all the way to the door, and it's giving him a sore feeling in his gut. He's supposed to be the bass player. He's not supposed to be on the front lines of band shenanigans and NME headlines. He's not supposed to be the one sneaking off. Or if he is, it's supposed to be Gerard he's sneaking off with.

But Gerard doesn't do that any more.

They've only been in this hotel a couple of hours - they got in mid-afternoon, in time to watch the video - and so to Mikey's way of thinking, the room he and Gerard are in doesn't look that bad. Then again, Mikey never quite gets the hang of not living out out of bags no matter where he's sleeping any given night, and despite the fact that Gerard owns this kinda 7000-pocket organiser suitcase for his makeup and stage clothes, he still tends to end up spreading out the entirety of his other stuff all over the floor in the search for a particular shirt, so … it's typical, let's put it that way. Frank shoves Mikey through the door hard enough that he hits the closest bed, and wrinkles his nose at the piles of shit on the floor, before shaking his head defeatedly, and staring at Mikey instead, like he can iron the creases out of him by mind control.

'Right,' he says, folding his arms. 'What's eating at you?'

'Do you think Gerard's okay?' is not what Mikey means to say but those are the words that come out of his mouth.

Frank shrugs, and comes to sit next to him on the bed. He doesn't bother asking where this has come from, or bullshit like that. They don't mess around when it comes to asking questions like that about Gerard. They can't afford to. 'I think he's pretty fucking excited about that video hitting MTV,' he says. 'I don't think he's _not_ okay. But it's Gee, who can even fucking tell, right?'

'It just weirded me the fuck out, that's all,' Mikey says. He stares at his hands, wishing he had a beer in them to pick at the label of. Frank's warm and solid against his side even though there's the whole long edge of a mattress for them to be sitting on with plenty of space between them.

'It's a weird video,' Frank says.

'He was screaming my name like I really had died.' Mikey keeps staring at his hands, which are big and bony, and have ridiculous fucking callouses on the palms and fingertips, and the long joint of his left index finger, where fretwires sometimes dig in when you're sliding down the neck. They never used to be this hard, this numb, his hands, but since he quit college and they began playing every day, rehearsals and then shows and now touring, they've metamorphosed into this new form - familiar and yet full of odd dead spots he doesn't remember developing.

Fuck, he gets fucking maudlin when he's had … however many beers he's had.

Frank's hand, also crabbed and rough, covered in ink, slides in and tangles fingers with Mikey's. 'Yeah, but when they yelled cut he got up and smiled, remember?'

'Ray kept asking me how it felt to be dead,' Mikey says, half smiling at the memory. It was fucking surreal. 'I think they just wanted footage of his mouth moving.'

'Gee was playing up for the cameras,' Frank says, squeezing Mikey's hands. 'You know what he's like.'

'Yeah, I guess.' Mikey blinks, and realises it's dark in here. He's sitting in the dark pressed up against Frank, and he's drunk but he's not drunk enough to justify the next thing he does, which is turn his head so that he's looking up at Frank through his eyelashes, and squeeze Frank's hand back. 'I just worry about him.'

'I worry about both of you,' says Frank quietly. That hangs in the air for a moment, and then abruptly Asshole Frank is back, rolling his eyes. 'I worry that you'd get your heads permanently stuck up your asses if I wasn't here.'

'Thanks,' says Mikey drily. 'You're a real pal, Iero.'

Frank sighs. 'Right now it's not Gee I'm bothered with,' he says. 'Gee's out there getting his ear talked off by Toro about a movie they've both seen like three times each. It's you sitting here in the dark picking at your fingernails, Mikey. That video got to you, huh?'

'I'm okay,' says Mikey.

'Trust me?' asks Frank, because he's a dick.

'I hate you.'

'You fucking love me, Mikey Way.'

Mikey laughs, but doesn't deny it. He shoves at Frank's shoulder, but he's glad when it doesn't make him move away. He's felt weirdly touch-starved lately, stuck somehow between grossed-out by being close to people, wanting personal space he just can't get on the bus, and craving human contact like narcotics. 'I guess my head's a mess lately, that's all,' he says. 'Stuff has been crazy.'

'You're not wrong,' says Frank. 'Dude. If you haven't looked at the budget on that video, don't. It's gonna haunt me.'

'And we haven't really had a chance to just, stop for a while. That's all. Fuck, I'd give anything for a night in my own bed.'

'You need a distraction,' says Frank knowingly, and, wait, when did he get _that_ close? He's got his arm looped around Mikey's waist.

Mikey pretends he doesn't realise it, though, because if he realised it he'd have to push Frank away. He looks down at his hands again instead. 'I learned to play Anesthesia, is that enough of a distraction?' It was pretty good for an hour or so, it's a fun little riff, and distorting the hell out of a bass guitar is always a good time.

'Well that's just fucking morbid, coming from a bass player. Wait, is that where my DS2 went?'

Mikey shrugs. 'I couldn't be fucked unpacking my overdrive pedal, that's all. I'll put it back. It's shit for low frequencies, by the way.'

'It's a goddamn guitar pedal, what were you expecting? I could have told you it'd sound like crap, if you'd fucking asked before raiding my gear.' Frank doesn't sound mad. Not even disappointed. 'No, I mean a proper distraction. Not music or tour bullshit or any of that. Something to get your mind _off_ all that.'

'I don't have the time to have the patented Frank Iero three-day hangover right now,' Mikey points out. 'None of us do. We've got a show tomorrow, Frank -' Because Frank is getting his _fuck it I'm gonna do it_ face on and generally that's time for all sensible humans to either run or hide under the furniture. 'I should go,' Mikey starts, even though this is his room, even though going back into the other room with his brother, or worse, being alone, are the last things he wants right now. 'I've got stuff I should -'

'Hey Mikey,' says Frank, leaning closer, leaning up. His voice is low, warm, dangerous. 'Am I distracting you?'

Mikey can't answer because he's suddenly got a lap full of very handsy rhythm guitarist and a tongue halfway down his throat. And yeah, that's pretty fucking distracting. Frank is, kind of unsurprisingly, a bossy kisser. He locks his fingers in Mikey's hair and drags at him until they've wriggled their way together onto the mattress fully, and Mikey's leaning up against the headboard with Frank straddling his thighs and ripping at the fly on his jeans like they're on a clock. Mikey gets his hands up under Frank's shirt and drags his calloused fingertips down Frank's skin. It makes girls shiver, that move - it makes Frank twist like a fish on a hook and bite hard on Mikey's bottom lip and say, 'Jesus fuck, Mikey, I want you to touch my dick like that -'

Which, of course, is when Gerard, who has apparently been standing in the doorway for some amount of time, chokes, and Frank and Mikey finally realise he's there.

'Uh -'

Mikey attempts to scramble out from under Frank, who's frozen to the spot. Gerard waves the hand he has two bottles of beer in, like that's all he can muster to explain why he's here (he doesn't need an explanation, this is his fucking room too, and Jesus but something fucking _hurts_ inside Mikey seeing Gerard holding beer he can't drink), and then spins around abruptly, drops the bottles, and shuts the door on his way out.

'Shit,' says Frank, which just about sums it up. 

'I should talk to him.' Mikey tries to do up his pants and Frank stops him. 

'Leave him,' he says. 'Seriously, Mikes. He'll be fine.' He grabs Mikey's chin and kisses him again, and Mikey melts into it. 

When he gets his brain function back under control, Frank's pulled both of their shirts off, and the sight of Frank without a shirt on is pretty much enough to make Mikey's brain flatline all over again, but he rallies. 'I gotta -'

'If he's mad, he's mad,' says Frank, sitting up. 'If he's grossed out, which for the record, I think he won't be, then he's grossed out. Either way, you running off right now is a dumbass idea. Let him think it through. Talk to him in the morning. Stay with me,' he adds, and okay he says it low, like he's trying to be seductive, but there's something in his eyes that Mikey can't disbelieve.

'You're still trying to distract me,' he says, reaching out and curling his arms around Frank's shoulders. 

'Is it working?' Frank asks against his mouth. 

'Getting there,' says Mikey. 'Definitely getting there.'

***

Frank leaves, which makes sense even just on the practical level of his toothbrush is in the other room, let alone the whole "not everyone needs to know we just did that" thing.

(Hell yeah they did that. Twice.)

Mikey stays faceplanted into the bed, flaps his hand at Frank when Frank drops a parting kiss on his head, still doing his pants up. Frank laughs and smacks him on the bare ass. Mikey kicks at him and misses, but he smiles into the pillow. Frank leaves. Mikey waits. Breathes in the darkness and tries to tell himself Gerard won't notice the smell of sex when he walks back in here.

But Gerard doesn't come back. An hour passes, and still, he doesn't come back. Mikey tosses and turns and gets up and trips over the fucking beers Gerard dropped, stubs his toe on the glass and swears. He cracks open the first one before he even knows he's doing it, the habit of having glass in his palm too strong to do anything else, and then since it's open he drinks it. 

At about 3am, he's groggy and worried, but not ready to send out the search party just yet. Six, nine months ago, Gerard wouldn't have even been thinking about coming home yet. And hell, half the time Mikey would have been out with him. Just as he's deciding he should fucking man up and do something, though, he gets a text from Ray saying _G in our room - everything ok?_

No, it fucking isn't, but he's not gonna tell the others that. Gerard is okay, Ray's got him. That's all that matters. 

Instead of replying, Mikey drinks the second beer. It's warm from being rolled in his palms so long, but who fucking cares? He just wants to sleep. He doesn't sleep well on tour anyway, but fuck if it hasn't caught up faster than he expected this time around. At least when he's buzzed he can doze.

The alarm going off catches him in that fugue state half between asleep and awake, startles his groggy, still kinda drunk system into heart-pounding overdrive.

Fuck. Mikey manages to roll himself out of bed, scrape together an outfit that includes a shirt he's about 75% sure is Gerard's although the pants are definitely his (who even knows about the underwear anymore, they're clean, that's all that matters), and finds the others all looking worse for wear and eating bear claws in the other room.

It's awkward, going in there, because Ray and Bob are clearly perfectly fucking aware that there's Band Drama going on, and Frank is looking like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth which is even more fucking suspicious than if he'd literally been wearing a shirt saying I Fucked Our Bass Player Last Night. And Gerard … Gerard keeps throwing Mikey looks that Mikey can't decipher. 

But no-one is horribly killed and dumped in the harbour, so it's probably gone as well as it can.

***

Soundcheck that afternoon, and Mikey's slightly worried that his G string (yeah yeah, laugh it up) is wearing already against the nut on his fretboard, and that takes up enough of his attention that it isn't until they're about to go on stage that he realises he hasn't seen either Gerard or Frank in half an hour. 

This is probably not good. He reluctantly puts down his Jag-bass and starts to look around. 

Eventually he finds them in one of the weird little backstage nooks big venues always seem to have - a little space carved out with packing cases and coiled leads on the floor. The exact kind of place Frank likes to hide in before a show.

'- not fucking kidding, Frankie.'

Gerard's right up against Frank, who has his guitar slung over his shoulder, swung around behind him like he was playing when Gerard got all up in his space and he had to push it aside, and they look like they're about to fight. 

Frank's face is hard, impassive. 'Come on, Gerard, don't you think the 'you break his heart I break your face' speech is a bit old?'

Mikey starts to actually freak out. If one of them throws a punch … what if it this is it? What if this is how it all ends? He'll be remembered as Yoko Ono but with better taste in skinny jeans.

'He's my kid brother,' says Gerard softly, which doesn't mesh with his body language at all. 'What would you do?'

'Believe me, I get it. I know how you feel, Gee,' says Frank. 'Don't you trust me?'

All of a sudden their tempo's changed, folded back on itself. There's a beat, and then another, and Mikey's not sure if they're ever going to move again, not sure what he's watching any more, but then Gerard steps back. 'We're due on in like, two minutes.'

Mikey can hear the crowd already, now that his heartrate is starting to wind down again. Gerard looks over at him when he steps out of the shadows. 'You guys okay?' he asks, as if he didn't overhear the tail of their conversation. 

'We're great,' says Gerard, smiling. You could cut the tension jumping between him and Frank with a knife. 

Then they're on stage, and that's where everything starts to get really complicated. 

***

Mikey plays the bass player stereotype to the hilt tonight, because he doesn't know if he can face Gerard or Frank. Thank god, the pair of them are on fucking fire, burning through songs, and there's no room for drama in the middle of that. Ray's charging up and down the stage in the thick of it all, and so Mikey just turns his back, and stands by his amplifiers, and plays. 

This is what he loves, when he can feel every note he's hitting in his own lungs because the reverb's that strong, and he can watch the muscles in Bob's arms bunch and swell, and they stay on the beat by eye contact and body language, because this close up the sound fuzzes too much to keep time by. This doesn't change, the tight little space between bassist and drummer, because a crowd is a crowd is a crowd, when you have your back to them. This is familiar and safe, being tucked deep down in the songs like this and letting the sound of Ray and Frank and Gerard swirl around behind him. 

Bob keeps the beat, which is all Mikey wants out of a bandmate right now. He stays in time and manages to neither seduce Mikey nor defend his honour like he's a 19th century society maiden, and so Mikey turns his back on everything and everyone else and just plays his fucking bass.

Right up until the cheering reaches a pitch and frenzy he's never heard before and Bob makes a meaningful face at him that isn't 'hey remember the bridge is coming up in a couple of bars'. So Mikey turns around, and.

Frank is kissing Gerard.

No. Frank is making out with Gerard. Full on body contact. Frank's swung his goddamn guitar around again, just like their argument before, and they're pressed together just like before, but this time they're doing what they're doing with tongue. Lots of it. 

O … kay then.

Thank fuck they always make time for rehearsals because Mikey really doesn't know how he's still playing right now. Frank has both hands cupped around Gerard's face and it's fucking obscene, they're sucking face in the way you do when you don't care what it looks like or what anyone thinks, you're just desperate to be as close as you to can to the other person - to be so close you're practically inside them. 

It's how you kiss someone you're fucking, and Mikey's standing there still feeling the aftereffects of being with Frank last night, the tightness of muscles that don't get a lot of exercise, watching it.

Gerard's still clutching the microphone and he does keep trying to pull away but he can't seem to make himself actually go through with it, at least until the beat comes around again (because Bob and Ray are still professionals) and he shoves Frank off him with what looks like a real effort and picks up the verse he was interrupted in the middle of. Frank swings his guitar back around and goes back to playing, goes over to Ray and they play the rest of the song without a blink, staring at each other's fretboards the way they do at practice. 

Gerard's on his knees at the edge of the stage, screaming. Playing up for the cameras and the audience.

Mikey stumbles, bass strap weighing heavy where his shoulder slopes into his neck. He turns back the fuck around, pants painfully tight and wondering what the hell just happened, what he just walked into.

They run through the rest of the setlist and get off the stage. Mikey's in a rush like he's storming that beachhead again, desperate to get back to solid ground. 

Frank dumps an entire bottle of water over his head when they make it back to the green room, and shakes off like a dog. Ray, the closest to the blast radius and still carrying his Les Paul, hurriedly turns his back and hunches protectively over his pickups. 

'Holy shit,' says Bob. That's all he says, though - he's the next one at the water. 

Gerard won't meet Mikey's eyes. That … hurts. Mikey makes a point of bumping up against him, leaning against the wall, even though they're still sweltering hot from the stage lights and sweaty and stinking. He butts up against Gerard and Gerard, after a second, leans into him. Mikey settles a little bit, breathing in the familiar, kinda gross, scent of his brother. 

He's still hard in his jeans, and he shouldn't be rubbing up against Gerard when he's like this but this has been the weirdest few days and Mikey needs grounding. Needs Gerard, just for a few seconds, so that he can recalibrate, retune to normal. 

Gerard doesn't put his arm around Mikey like he would have once, though.

Frank's bouncing off the walls, which is 100% normal. They make it back to the bus, herded there by an escort that seems to be fending off everyone under thirty in the entire world, and Frank's still the Energizer bunny, which makes it easier for Mikey to steer him to the bunks, when they get on the bus, waving a bottle of vodka he blatantly stole from the support act. They all know Mikey likes to get away from them post-morteming gigs. This is normal, so the others let them go, although Gerard … Mikey can feel him watching them as they leave. 

Not even that long ago, this wouldn't have been a bus, and it would have been Gerard and Mikey, the rancid back-of-the-van mattress, and the bottle, talking shit in the dark til they fell asleep. But things have shifted, and Mikey's starting to realise they've been askew for longer than he's known about, because it's not like Gerard stopped hanging with him overnight. They crystallised into a five-person unit, they had to, after Japan and after Matt, after Gerard and everything that happened there, because it was close ranks or be picked to pieces - and now they don't break back down into their constituent parts the way they used to. Or at least, Mikey and Gerard don't. 

So Mikey pulls Frank away instead, brings the bottle, and this is so not a good idea, not like this, not here, but fuck it.

Frank's fucking high-octane tonight. He slides the vodka out of Mikey's hand and leads the way down the bus, all hip-swinging swagger, but he isn't prepared for Mikey to shove him up against the bunks as soon as they're out of sight of the others, and take the bottle back. 'What the fuck was that out there?' Mikey demands under his breath. He's shaking, drops the bottle to the mattress of the bottom bunk - his bunk, it's got his duffle in it already - with a soft thud. 'You and Gee - what the hell, Frank?'

His hands find Frank's hips. He's holding too tight, he knows he is, but he can't make himself pull back.

He's expecting some excuse, or an apology, or 'it wasn't what it looked like' or even something about doing it to mess with him, or the fans, or something, but Frank looks up at him with huge dark eyes, the 'fuck it I'm gonna do it' face again, and there's no way he's planning on lying. Frank likes the truth, bare and painful and balls to the wall.

'I get caught up,' Frank says, panting-hot and unapologetic. 'I get - fuck, Mikey. You get to turn away but I gotta follow him and sometimes he just _looks_ at me and I -' he's practically vibrating under Mikey's hands, '- I just wanna get on my knees for him.'

Mikey kisses Frank so hard he tastes blood. 

Frank snarls and opens up without any resistance, as wide as he did for Gerard, and Mikey licks in, hungry for this, for what he saw out there. If Gerard can have it, why can't Mikey? It's only fair, and Frank's acting like he agrees, perching on the edge of the bunk, thighs spreading to let Mikey lean hard between them, welcoming him in.

Frank tastes different this time, though. Not like he did last night. But familiar. 

'Oh, fuck,' Mikey breathes against Frank's wet mouth. 'You taste of Gee.'

'Don't be mad,' Frank whispers, fisting his hands in Mikey's shirt. 'God. I couldn't help it. You both get me so fucking hot.'

'Gonna fuck you,' Mikey growls, out of his head on want, vindictive and competitive like he only ever is with Gee, about Gee. 'Send you back to him. See how he likes it.'

Frank's whole body twists and his eyes slam shut. 'Fuck yes. Mikey, _yes_.'

They're in the goddamn bus, the bus with their bandmates in it, the bus with no fucking walls or soundproofing, just curtains as a piss-poor attempt at privacy, and Mikey doesn't fucking care. He shoves Frank into his bunk and crowds in after him. 

Mikey turns Frank around to face the wall, drags his jeans down til they're caught around the width of his thighs, and shoves his fingers in Frank's mouth. Frank sucks, sloppy and wet, and Mikey can feel the pressure of his teeth. One-handed, he starts wrenching at his own fly, fumbling in his pockets for a condom ... that isn't there …

That makes him stop, just for a second, because is he really going to do this? 

But as soon as he stops moving Frank whines under him, around his fingers. 'Fucking do it,' he mumbles, garbled with spit. 'Want it, Mikey. Want you.'

Mikey knows Frank's the master of bad decisions post-gig. He knows that. But he shoves up close behind him and bites his ear and says, 'Yeah, Frank, I know you do,' anyway, and puts two fingers up Frank's ass just to hear the noise he makes. It's fucking musical, a tiny minor note, a chiming harmonic in a cathedral.

Frank shakes and squirms and lets Mikey in like a dream. And Mikey shouldn't. He shouldn't, but he is, burning up with thinking about Gerard finding his mess. Watching him make a mess. Cleaning it up.

Jesus fuck, this is fucking screwed up.

'C'mon,' Frank growls, after hardly any time at all, shoving back on Mikey's fingers. 'Stop pussying around, Way, c'mon, are we fucking or not?'

'Shut up,' Mikey grunts, biting the nape of Frank's neck where he's sweating hair product, tastes waxy and bitter and salt all at once. But it's good, feeling Frank fight him like this - feels real, feels like them, even under this wave of confusing whateverthefuck that's sweeping over Mikey right now. Stops him from thinking _Gee_ too much, because this is vicious close-quarters combat, all ripped edges and safety-pin-prick words. And that's Frank's style, unmistakeable.

He's got three fingers up Frank now and Frank's fucking happy about it, but Mikey's still … still hesitant about step two. Not safe, his brain says to him, can't, didn't ask, you're supposed to have a conversation about not -

Frank twists his head to one side though, panting, and his mouth is so close to Mikey's where Mikey's got his forehead leaning on the wall over his shoulder, grounding himself, glasses mashed askew up against the vibrating side of the bus as they speed down the highway through the night. 'Fucking do me raw, Mikey Way,' Frank whispers into the corner of his mouth. 'Wanna see if I can make your brother lick it outta me,' and that's _it_.

Mikey's got his dick in Frank and Frank's got one arm braced on the wall and one arm hooked backwards around Mikey's waist before Mikey's brain realises what the fuck and tries to reclaim its supervisory role. It doesn't make it. The grind of the waistband of Frank's jeans against the tops of Mikey's thighs is too distracting. He claws at Frank's shirt, drags it up and off and sinks his mouth down on all that smooth skin, leaving marks, four fingerprint trail, bass tab skipping uneven lines in the few snatches of Frank that are still paper-white and unmarked

'Oh, fuck, fuck yeah,' Frank's saying, wild, hot, voice so low it's like his vocal cords are flatwound nickel over steel core. 'Christ, Mikey. Mikes, you're - I - Mikey - _Mikey_ -' 

Pitch rising. Not screaming, not really, still trying so hard to be quiet, and Frank's spoken voice is deeper than Gerard's vocals, but it's too much, too similar, too soon. Mikey's heart kicks in his chest like a squib going off and he bites Frank's shoulder meaner than he would ever mean to, and comes so hard it's like white-out, stepped on a pyro pot, stagelights all up on full and everything gone but the roar of the crowd in his ears. 

Mikey would swear he can't move, until Frank slips free from under him, and lies on his arching back to pull his pants back up over the wet mess of his crotch, and then Mikey's pinning him again, not even thinking. 'Where do you think you're going?' he asks, hoarse. 

'Gee,' Frank breathes. Now that the roaring in Mikey's ears has died down, he can hear laughter and music from the other end of the bus.

'Fucking right,' says Mikey, and lets him up. 'Send my regards.'

***

The next morning, Mikey rolls over on the unopened bottle of vodka that's still in the bunk.

Oh fuck. The engine has stopped - they must have stopped for breakfast.

There's a heavy tread, clearly someone walking towards him but trying to telegraph they're doing it, maybe to wake him.

'Shit, shit, shit -' he mumbles, kicking the bottle under the bedclothes and fumbling for the jeans he stripped out of before passing out last night, trying to wrestle them over his hips before someone gets an eyeful of the uncensored Mikey Way experience, but his jeans are fucking tight, okay, and he's not firing on all cylinders yet.

He hasn't slept that well in however many centuries it's been since they started this tour. He's sore and fucked out and this is a fucking disaster no matter who's coming down the aisle of the bus but he _slept_.

'Mikey, are you up?' says Gerard's voice. Mikey has five seconds to mentally swear at himself because of course it's Gerard, of course it's the one person who knows exactly what he looks like after a dirty night out, before his brother is standing silhouetted at the edge of the bunk. He has some fucking spectacular bedhead going on, but Mikey suspects he's not much better. He finds his glasses under the pillow where he stuffed them last night, and rams them onto his face.

Gerard looks no less like a train wreck, but now at least he's less literally fuzzy around the edges. He just kinda stands there, scratching his belly where his clothes are riding up, wearing a hoodie that's a little too tight and a little too short and a little too obviously Frank's. 'Hey,' he says. 

'Coffee?' says Mikey, which is not a distraction tactic, shut up.

'Oh my god, yes,' says Gerard. 'But you should probably put a shirt on first.'

Mikey fishes around in the nest of sheets and his half-open bag that's been kicked to the foot of the mattress, and finds a shirt and a hoodie of his own that don't smell too bad.

'Good to go?'

They sneak off the bus with their hoods up and a total of no followers this time, which is nice. They've got about a one out of three times hitrate for getting away clean these days, which Mikey is starting to suspect is gonna just keep getting worse and worse. 

It isn't til Mikey's balancing a cardboard tray of coffee cups and has his face buried in one of his own, on the way back from the coffeeshop, that Gerard says, 'I'm sorry.'

Sorry for what? would be Mikey's first question, but he's got a scalding mouthful of coffee and that tends to impede talking. 

'I know we haven't, like, hung out much lately, being on the road and all,' Gerard continues, and that … is not the apology Mikey thought he was going to get. He didn't think he was gonna get an apology at all, really - he thought he was due a fucking screaming match. 

This must show in his eyes, because Gerard bites his lip and says, 'I know it's been weird -'

'Oh, things are weird?' Mikey asks in as low, quiet a voice he can muster once he's swallowed the coffee. 'Really, Gerard? Gosh, I didn't notice.'

'Where do you want me to start?' Gerard asks helplessly. There's a red blush staining his cheeks.

'With what the fuck that was on stage last night,' Mikey … doesn't hiss, exactly, but he feels like he should be.

'Hey, he came at me, dude.'

'Not an answer.'

Gerard bristles. 'Since when did you care anyway? It's not like it's the first time.'

And that stops Mikey dead, because … it's not? When did they - where was he? 'What the fuck?'

'Stop looking at me like that, you prude - you were the one banging him on the fucking bus. It's not a big deal, it's just like … a drunk, friendly thing. Or it was. When I. Fuck, you know. God.' In a different tone of voice he says, 'anyway, since when did that kinda shit freak you out, huh? Tell me what's _actually_ bothering you, kiddo.'

He shoulder-bumps Mikey and almost spills the coffee, but it does break the snappish irritation Mikey's feeling, brings the other question, the first question, up to the surface. Because Gerard's right, it's not the Frank thing (whatever the fuck the Frank thing is, wherever the fuck it came from), that's throwing Mikey off his game right now. 

'You know I'm not going anywhere, right?' he asks. 'Gee?'

'Christ, not you too,' Gerard says, sighing. 'Ray was asking me all these questions ... it's just a fucking video, Mikey. And I didn't direct it, anyway.'

'You wrote the lyrics.'

'And the lyrics say sweet fuck all, if you actually listen. Look, the guy with the megaphone said 'your brother just died, be upset, I wanna see screaming' - so I screamed. Big deal. It was acting, Mikey.'

They're back at the bus already. Mikey has a hundred things he'd like to ask, a dozen of Gerard's lines he'd like to recite, but that album's already the last album and they're onto the new album, touring the new album, and Mikey should be more concerned with _I mean it, I'm okay_ and forget about things like _you can't touch my brother_. 

And in earshot of the others, they really shouldn't have this conversation. So Mikey pushes ahead of Gerard onto the bus and doesn't say any of the things that are queueing up to be said.

Ray takes his coffee, squints at Mikey, and pushes a couple of aspirin at him from the bottle he's already got in his hands, like he's the Hangover Fairy. 'You look like shit,' he says. 

'Thanks,' says Mikey drily. 'And you're a vision of loveliness.' But he swallows down the pills with the last of his coffee, because … well, regardless of what he looks like, he _feels_ like shit. This is why he loves Ray. 

Frank, who's hanging over the side of his bunk, looks like he's been hit by a Mack truck. Of sex. It's not subtle. And Mikey grew up with _Gerard_ , who gets up with sex hair and walk of shame eyes even when he's slept on his own in his own bed in a fucking basement. 

Frank's fingers brush Mikey's when he takes his cup of coffee, and he looks up at Mikey from under his ridiculous fucking fringe. There's the edge of a hickey just visible on the side of his neck, where his shirt's askew and the tattoos aren't quite wall-to-wall. Mikey's pretty sure he didn't leave it there. 

Gerard, just out of the corner of Mikey's eye, smirks at Frank like he doesn't realise Mikey can see him. Mikey shivers. And when Frank hops down from the bunk he fucking _winces_ , and just like that, Mikey needs to know exactly what the fuck his brother did to him last night. 

'Guys, the driver says we gotta leave now or we're gonna be late,' Bob says, chasing them up the aisle. 'Is that coffee?'

Mikey hands him the last cup and goes to find somewhere to sit for the next however many hundred miles, because that's the only useful thing to do right now. 

***

The bus ride, like all bus rides, gives Mikey too much time for thinking. He tucks himself into a corner with his headphones and tries desperately to just drown out the noises outside and inside his head, but it doesn't work.

As he sits at the tiny, cramped little table and jiggles his knees (his legs are folded up too tight, knees knocking at the tabletop, and it hurts; there's nowhere on a bus it's possible for anyone to actually have any goddamn leg room without being a hazard - better than vans though, god) the part of him that's violently, hotly aware of Frank and Gerard whispering in the sofa across from him, that wants to know what and how and what it looked like, starts to calm the fuck down and realise a few things. 

For a start, it's not Mikey that Frank's attracted to like a goddamn magnet to north. 

Frank's a hedonist, that's all, and Mikey's … his head is a mess of thumping bass and Gerard, always his fucking brother, in and out of all his thoughts. Normally he doesn't … he can't reflect on that because _normally_ it would be him and Gerard cramped up in this seat together with their elbows jammed between their sides. And Frank wedged in with them too, probably. But the point is that Frank couldn't be more into Gerard. You can see it from orbit, at least when you're looking. Except Mikey wasn't looking, not at Frank. And things haven't been normal, not that kind of normal, since before Japan.

Mikey was fucking stupid last night, he's been fucking stupid all along. And now Frank is caught in the middle of whatever this mess is between Mikey and Gerard, and that isn't fair. 

Across the aisle, there's a giggle. He jams the earbuds harder into his ears and turns his music up, til it hurts. 

When they finally roll into town (what city? Mikey doesn't know. Someone'll tell him if it becomes important), he glues himself to Bob rather than get stuck with Frank and Gerard, who've intercepted Ray and are charging on ahead. 

'They'll be unloading the gear,' Mikey says. 'Wanna go have a jam?'

Bob squints at him. 'Sure,' he says, easily. 'Want me to -'

'Nah, leave them,' says Mikey. 'Just need to burn some energy -' which is a lie, a fucking lie, Mikey wants to sleep for a week, '- and I need to wear in those new strings.'

And that's also a fucking lie because they have roadies now and the dude who looks after Mikey's gear is probably more competent than Mikey is, his job is to make sure those strings are well broken-in before Mikey ever steps on stage, and Bob _knows_ that because tech was his job, once upon a time, not even that long ago. But Bob just looks at him and smiles, and rolls his eyes. 'Well, god knows you need someone to keep the beat,' he says. 'Let me grab my sticks.'

They're not actually supposed to be at the venue til tomorrow for soundcheck, but there's enough gear unloaded that they're not totally in the way when they show up. The venue techs are … probably not that impressed, but the road crew have dealt with worse, and at least Mikey and Bob by themselves don't need the whole goddamn stage. Bob hauls his own drums out of their cases and sets up his kit, and Mikey manages to sweet-talk one of the roadies into finding his practice amp and pedalboard and even a lead (thank God) from somewhere in the chaos of packing cases. They set up sort of in the middle of the stage, Bob with his kit pulled in tight around him and Mikey perching on his amplifier, and the roadies and techs keep on working around them. 

The bullshit goes away, like this. Mikey's playing his Jag-bass a lot right now, and it sits just right in his lap, smooth, mellow curves all soft and laquered under his hands. It's heavy, one of the heavier basses he owns, but it doesn't ever feel awkward. It feels comfortable. 

They run through most of the stuff on the setlist that's been mostly hashed out for tomorrow, do Cemetery Drive twice because it gets fiddly in places and also because Bob just really likes the snare fill, for whatever mysterious drummer reason, and Mikey only notices that Bob's red in the face and starting to sweatily lose his hold on his sticks even with the grip tape when Ray turns up and taps him on the shoulder. 

'C'mon, we need to go get dinner, and I need you to lever Gee out of that rank fucking hoodie,' he says. 'And maybe like hose him down or something, he's not fit to be out in public. Pack it up, Bob,' he calls, over Mikey's head. 'Let the guys work.'

While Bob's busy chugging a water bottle that one of the roadies has deposited at his elbow (using psychic roadie powers and possible telekinesis, because Mikey would swear no-one's been near them at all til Ray turned up) and trying to towel himself off with his own shirt, Ray unplugs Mikey's lead from the amp and starts coiling it. 'Maybe try not to work the shiny new drummer to death?' he suggests quietly. 

'Just practicing,' Mikey says, shrugging.

'Yeah, I know,' says Ray. 'Except we've got a schedule now and it looks bad when half the band isn't where they were supposed to be.'

'Are you checking up on me?'

Ray puts down the neat coil of lead and runs his hand through his hair, tries and fails to get it to sit behind his ears. 'Maybe I was checking up on Bob.'

'Maybe you don't need to check up on either of us.'

'Sorry,' Ray says, not sorry at all. 'C'mon, seriously, if we don't feed Frank he's gonna start digesting his own organs from the inside.'

'That doesn't sound very vegan,' says Bob, struggling back into his creased shirt. 

'Then we better find him some vegetables.' Ray doesn't quite drag them out of the venue's backstage door but he makes it pretty clear he's not gonna let them wander off again.

They've got another hotel night tonight already - unusual, given they had just had one the night before last, but that's just how it panned out with travel distances and venue bookings this time. And thank fuck, because Ray's right (Ray has an annoying tendency to be right and then be nice about it, he's like Band Mom), Gerard already fucking reeks. And it's just Mikey's shit luck that he's related to him because despite how much they all live in each other's pockets anyway, that means he always draws this goddamn short straw. 

'We're not going anywhere til you've had a fucking shower,' Mikey says, shoving Gerard into their bathroom and then leaning on the door to keep it shut. 'I don't care, Gerard. Shut up.'

The shower turns on. Mikey waits. The shower turns off. Gerard emerges wearing something that smells of being shoved in a bag for however long but doesn't smell of sweat and worse, and his hair is wet. It'll do. 

'You look better,' he says to Mikey as he passes. 'C'mon, let's go eat.'

Look better? Mikey squints at the back of his brother's head, but shrugs. Whatever.

Dinner is the kind of silence you get when you give five dudes a table full of food. The waitresses bring their orders and basically stand well back. Mikey inhales the plate in front of him without bothering to identify it. Under the table, someone's sliding a foot up his ankle. Mikey ignores it, or, well, he tries. He can't hide every flinch. 

'Wanna watch a movie tonight?' Frank asks him when they hit the hotel lobby. They're dragging their heels at the back of the group, Mikey's got his head down because it's better to watch his own feet than watch the back of Gerard's head two people in front of him, and he'd been aiming for last in line so no-one would talk to him, but well, Frank happened. Frank does that. 

Frank elbows Mikey in the side when he doesn't answer. 'Huh?'

Mikey wants to say no, tell Frank to ask Gerard instead, but he's not okay to have this talk in a public goddamn place. 'Sure,' he says. 'Your room?' because he wants to be able to leave. 

Frank bowls forward to talk to Bob and Ray and Gerard. Mikey catches something about 'just need to unwind,' and 'stressed' and he guesses neither of those are lies, so he leaves it. Let Frank tell the others whatever he wants to. Mikey gets into the elevator with them all and stares at his feet. 

He wishes the elevator were smaller. He wishes there weren't space around him. He wishes he could fucking choke on body heat, yearns for the days he could get fucking crushed in the pit in some skeezy club, because he feels like he's coming out of his fucking skin.

Frank gets a bit of a swagger in his step, more than usual anyway, when the elevator stops at and Mikey follows him, past his and Gerard's room, to the one two doors down where Frank, Ray and Bob have been put tonight. There are three pairs of eyes boring into the back of Mikey's head but it doesn't matter. It's just one more night, and then it'll be like nothing happened. And whatever, Bob and Ray can deal with the mess in the other room. Not like it's something they haven't drunk around before. And doesn't _that_ sound like a fucking metaphor?

'What do you wanna watch?' Frank says when they're alone, the door clicking behind him. 'I got - hey, you okay?'

He comes up and puts his hand on Mikey's elbow, and Mikey can't help it, he pulls away because it's that or lean in. 'I'm not gonna sleep with you again,' he says. 

'Okay,' says Frank slowly. 'Cool. And your choice of movie?'

'Fuck off,' says Mikey, 'we both know that wasn't what you were angling for when you asked me up here. Cut the crap, Frank.'

'Y'know, you're allowed to have things,' Frank says, plopping himself down on the edge of his bed. 'To want things. We're on fucking tour, Mikey, you're allowed to cut loose.'

'Is that what we're doing? Cutting loose? What about you and Gerard? What're you doing with him, huh?'

Frank shrugs. 'Whatever we fucking feel like,' he says. 'I figure he _deserves_ to cut loose a little. You got a problem with it? Didn't seem like it last night.'

'Last night was a mistake.'

'Last night was good,' says Frank, stretching himself out, putting himself so incredibly on display it makes Mikey's lizard brain start salivating.

'Last night was fucking fucked up, man!' Mikey throws his hands up in the air. 'Dude, you - I - you can't tell me Gee was up for that.'

As soon as he says it he knows it's the wrong thing to say. Gerard was stage-high, pumped on adrenaline - Gerard doesn't know how to say no when he's like that. Gerard's never known how to say no when he's up, regardless of whether or not he's had chemical help. And Frank just plain doesn't know how to stop. Mikey knows that. Mikey should have never -

Frank laughs. 'Hell, you don't know shit about your brother, do you. Whatever, man, fucked up emotions make good music. No-one ever wrote a song about going to bed before ten on a school night, Mikes. Bands fuck around with each other, it's just … fuck, natural. You don't get rock n roll without sex and drugs. We're just continuing a grand old tradition.'

'Bands? Like, like who? Fleetwood fucking Mac? I hate to break it to you, Frank, but you're not Lindsey Buckingham.' 

'Fine, I'll be Stevie Nicks for you if that's what you're into, baby.' He smirks. ' _Now here you go again -_ ' he starts singing, pouting and hamming it up, and Mikey shoves at him. 

'Oh my god, you're disgusting.'

Frank frowns, and he drops the cheerful act, folds in on himself, and Mikey swears at himself. He just wanted to make Frank … stop, that's all, not to make him feel bad. He sits down next to Frank, safe six inches between them. 'I didn't mean that,' he says. 'You're not - Frank, c'mon. You know this is nuts, right?'

'It's just sex, Mikey,' says Frank. 'All the other shit, that's no good for you. But this is just sex. It's fun. It's easy. It's safe.' He reaches out like he's gonna touch Mikey's leg, but Mikey can't help twitching away. 'It's just us,' he says softly. 'Just me. You can trust me, Mikes.'

'Dunno if I can,' says Mikey. 'Not with Gee.'

Frank snorts bitterly. 'Everyone's worried about Gerard,' he says under his breath. 'Gee can look after himself, Mikey.'

'So can I.'

'Yeah, you're doing a great job at that,' says Frank flatly, which … okay. Mikey squints at him, but Frank gets up before he can ask. 'Look, have you actually, like, talked to Gee? You guys went for coffee this morning … did he say anything?'

Mikey shrugs. 'Apologised for not hanging out with me more,' he says. 'Why?'

'I need to show you something, okay?' Frank says. 'Can I?' He picks up the hem of his shirt. 'Last night, I told Gee to fucking leave you a note if he wasn't gonna talk to you. Told him I'd make sure you got it.' 

'Jesus, Frank -'

Frank hikes up his shirt to show his belly, where there's still blank skin. Or. There was. Blank skin. Now, there's raw, puffy scratches. Two long scrapes, two short ones. 

'M', Mikey reads out loud, like a dumbass.

'Yeah,' says Frank, running his fingers over it. 'Not sure what he was going for, to be honest with you, but hey. Guess an M is easier than a G. Not a lot of room to manoeuvre in that tiny fucking toilet, anyway.' 

Of course. Of course he fucking fucked Gerard in the fucking bus bathroom. Because this couldn't get any more goddamn sordid, could it. Frank's looking down at the red lines on his stomach, and Mikey's suddenly mad at Gerard for being so fucking possessive, cos they look like they hurt. 'Fucking - are you okay?' he asks. 'I'm gonna kill him,' he adds, resisting the urge to reach out. 'He can't just hurt people like this.'

Frank laughs. 'This? It's nothing, Mikes. Felt good when he was doing it, too.' He takes Mikey's hand and pulls til he's touching. The marks are hot, soft and puffy. 'Feels good now.'

'It's still not okay. This whole thing, it's not okay.' Mikey snatches his hand away. 'I'm not doing this any more, Frank.'

'Mikes -'

But Mikey's gone before Frank can do something stupid, like touch him, because he doesn't know if he could pull away a second time.

He pauses outside his room, listening. But there's no noise from inside, nothing that says the other three stayed here. Why would they? The band's not so big yet that they can't go out, as long as they're moderately careful not to make a scene. If this was a year ago, they'd be at a bar right now, and maybe they are, but Mikey'd put money on Ray suggesting they catch a movie instead. Unlike Mikey, Ray's looking out for Gerard.

He pulls out his phone, half-thinking he should call them, maybe they could meet up after. But it's nearly eleven and he doesn't want to, not really. The idea of going out into the street gives him the shudders. So he puts his phone back and pulls out his keycard instead. He doesn't even bother to turn the light on when he pushes into the room, which means he trips over his bag and then has to stagger through a drift of clothes (further evidence of Gerard leaving the building - he never ever wants to wear what's at the top of his duffel) before he can flop onto his bed. He buries his face in the pillow and tries to strip his clothes off at the same time, which works about as well as you'd expect. 

It's hot tonight. He sleeps in his underwear, because they're leaving again tomorrow night straight after the gig here, so why would he bother even opening his bag? Definitely not for his fucking pyjamas.

The red numbers on the clock taunt him, ticking over and over, minutes marching one after the other, sixty beats per minute. For hours. At 2am, Gerard comes back. He does his best to be quiet, sheds his clothes in the dark and crawls under his blankets, doesn't even snore. That's another thing Mikey's lost since Japan - Gerard's drunk, dead-to-the-world snore. All the times he considered beating his brother to death with a pillow over it, you'd think he wouldn't miss it, but it's another touchstone of Mikey's world eroded away and waiting to be grown over with something new.

This whole tour has felt like that, like scorched earth. Something's gonna grow out of the slash-and-burn agriculture they've had to resort to, to save the band and save themselves, but Mikey doesn't know what it is yet. 

Maybe that's why he's scared. 

Gerard falls asleep, quiet, breathing through his mouth. Mikey watches the clock tick over like a metronome. Eventually, maybe, he thinks he might sleep too. Or maybe he just loses count of the numbers. 

Eventually, the sun comes up. Gerard gets up, still quiet, not looking at Mikey's bed. Mikey stares at the clock. Eventually Bob comes into the room and doesn't blink at Mikey's mostly naked body, just pulls him up to sitting, shoves a hot cardboard cup of coffee under his nose. Pulls things out of his bag. Pushes him towards the bathroom, where the shower looks too complicated so he splashes water on his face and under his arms and puts limb after limb into the clothes Bob hands him. 

'You missed breakfast,' says Bob. He's opened the curtains, and the light makes Mikey blink behind his smeary glasses. 'But you probably know that, huh?'

Mikey's gut grumbles. Bob hands him a paper bag with a grease stain on it. 

'We've got the tech rehearsal after lunch.'

The stupid clock, which is pale and hard to read in the daylight, says it's still morning. 'So why'd you wake me up?' Mikey asks, and it's not Bob's fault he's in a shitty mood, but he can't help his tone. 

Bob rolls his eyes. 'Photoshoot,' he says. 'Which is why we're here, remember? C'mon, if I have to go through this you do too. I was perfectly happy running tech. I never wanted to be a rockstar.'

'That's a lie,' says Mikey, picking up his jacket, resigned to his fate. 'You're a wannabe John Bonham and you know it.'

'Whatever, man, I never wanted to be in fucking photoshoots.' Bob eyes him. 'You got your phone, wallet, keys, shit like that?'

'Yes, Mom. And don't get too worried about actually being in any of the damn photos,' Mikey adds. He pockets his keycard and goes to the door. 'Trust me.'

***

'I see what you mean,' says Bob. 

'It's the eyeliner,' Mikey says, shrugging. 'What can I say, some people are just born talented.'

'You wait,' says Ray, who's sitting on Mikey's other side. 'They're gonna want the bro photo in a moment, you know it's coming.'

They've dressed Gerard as a fucking priest, which he is loving. He's playing his part, the big rockstar, animated and laughing and posing like a professional. One of the production assistants has been in a permanent fucking swoon since they started, which was funny and is now kind of embarrassing. Frank and Gerard have been front and centre since the start, and Ray, Bob and Mikey, thank god, have been back row, but Ray's right. The moment where they put him and Gerard in the middle, or on their own, is coming. It always comes sooner or later. 

'Ugh,' says Mikey, flopping back to lie flat on the stark white floor of this stark white set. 'Kill me.' He forces himself to lie still, but his fingers are twitching. If he could force the ground to open up and swallow him he would - even just being able to sink down like he did in the sand at Malibu, with Ray over him, holding him down, hiding him, would be better than this. The idea of getting up again to stare down the barrel of a camera lens is too much to even comprehend. 

There's a sudden weight on his chest - he opens his eyes, and Frank's put his fucking feet up like they're in a parlour and Mikey's a fricking footstool. 

He shouldn't let Frank do this kind of shit to him any more. God. But he can't throw him off in public like this, that would look weird. Would require explanation. Frank looks down at Mikey and Mikey looks up at Frank and is just, just too tired to fight, too hungry for touch to throw even this off. He lets Frank's feet in his dirty, once-white shoes stay where they are, heavy across his ribcage, resisting his lungs when he breathes. He lays his head back down and forces breathing to happen, in, out, in, out, slow. 

And that weight? That pressure? Something about it settles the twitchiness in Mikey's heart and fingers.

Someone else comes to sit down near Mikey's legs, and from the way they nudge their feet up under his calf he knows it's Gerard. Somewhere far away, he hears someone he doesn't know yell that they're taking a break, and there's a smell of coffee. Mikey stays down, and Frank stays propped up on top of him, and the tiny warm patch of Gerard's ankle against Mikey's calf doesn't move.

It doesn't last. They have to get up, and put their arms around each other, and make faces like they're confused and constipated, and do all the other stupid photoshoot things, which they've done enough now that it's becoming its own kind of autopilot. But it was - for five minutes, it didn't feel like bits of Mikey were being eroded away.

After the camera goes away, so does Gerard. He takes the dog collar off and gives it back, and all that energy gets packed away again. Mikey wants to go put his arm around his brother so bad it hurts, but when they make eye contact it's so full of … of words, somehow, and they aren't words Mikey wants to hear Gerard say out loud. 

Ray steps up next to Gerard, though, steers him out of the studio talking about something Mikey can't follow that seems to involve a lot of patented Ray Toro expansive hand gestures. That breaks the deadlock, and Bob falls into step next to Mikey. There's clearly a plan of attack being followed here, something they've choreographed. They walk out in a block with Frank in the lead, hood up and attitude like a pitbull puppy in full fucking force, and yeah, oh yeah, the band is closing ranks again, with Gerard and Mikey in the centre. 

Mikey doesn't get a moment to himself between photoshoot and lunch and the technical rehearsal, and as far as he can tell neither does Gerard. They're both being treated like unexploded bombs. But hey, it works, because nothing goes wrong. They function as a band on tour, exactly like they're supposed to.

Except Mikey still doesn't know what fucking state they're in, let alone what city, and every time he tries to force himself to concentrate on a conversation he can't quite get a handle on it. It's a freakout, he knows it's a freakout, he's had them before. He should be able to deal with it, but last time he had Gerard crawling into his hotel bed with him with a bottle of vodka and rubbing his neck til he slept, and Frank sitting next to him on the bus and keeping him talking when he couldn't.

Now he has this, he has Bob next to him every time there's sitting to be done, and that's fine, that's good, Bob is a fucking rock and Mikey feels sheltered by him, but all Bob can do is stop the waves breaking over Mikey, he can't stop this fucking tide from coming in. It doesn't matter how bad Mikey wants Gerard and Frank and the old kind of normal, he can't have it, because there's something else in its place now, something new and different and untested, and Mikey guesses Bob and Ray are trying to be a stopgap, patch up the cracks that keep appearing, but they can't just make things be okay again. That's gonna take time.

Mikey's barely hanging on by his cut-up, metal-stinking fingertips. He doesn't feel like he has time.

How is this functioning?

***

You ever felt alone in a sold-out venue? Mikey has. 

Being on stage is fucking torture. Mikey tries to get back into the zone with Bob that he found here on this stage yesterday, to hide behind volume and the sacred inviolable eye contact between drummer and bass player, but Gerard and Frank won't let him stay there, keep coming for him, drawing his attention out even if they can't make him cross the void to them.

The shallow vee between the banks of speakers and the drum platform is safe, up to a point. Mikey tries to hide in there, and Ray flanks him, but Gerard's like a firework all over the stage, all over Frank, and Mikey can't tear his eyes away from the way they look at each other. 

If that was all it was, Mikey could cope, but then Gerard muscles his way into Mikey's triangle of safety, drapes his arm over Mikey's shoulder and sings at him. Sings Ghost of You, dark smudgy eyes and soft, pouting mouth, runs his hands through his own hair and scrapes his fingernails down his own throat and reaches out to Mikey, and Mikey trembles. 

Scratches start to show on Gerard's own throat and Mikey dizzily remembers the M on Frank's belly in livid red, and he still can't work out how to read Gerard's note.

 _For all the things that you never ever told me_ crackles in Gerard's voice. Means more now than Mikey thought it did when Gerard first brought the lyrics to rehearsal. Means more than it did a week ago on Ray's laptop screen. 

Mikey plays his bass, keeps his hands where they're supposed to be, keeps pressure on the wound.

_For all the ghosts that are never gonna -_

Mikey keeps his head down and tries not to bleed out all over the stage.

***

'Y'know, I don't care if you and Frank are fooling around,' Gerard says, very quietly, to Mikey. He's appeared on the other end of the sofa Mikey's sprawled on, like an apparition. Mikey didn't even know he was there, or how long he's been hovering - too busy watching the streetlights, flashing by in the dark night out the bus window. He isn't bothering with a bunk tonight, not when it's a choice between staring at a wall or staring out a window. Window's better, obviously.

'It's none of your business,' says Mikey, turning his head from the view. Gerard's so close Mikey can smell his shampoo. 

'Yeah, that's pretty much my point,' says Gerard. 'Seriously. You two … are you two. Him and me, that's a whole separate thing. I get that we crossed the streams there for a hot minute but, seriously dude, it doesn't need to be a problem.'

Mikey shrugs. 'We don't need any more band drama,' he says. 'And in case you hadn't noticed, we're starting to get enough press that if anyone found out …'

He doesn't say, you carved my fucking initial on him. He doesn't say, you fucked him when he was gross because I'd already been there. 

He doesn't say, but that doesn't matter, does it, because you'd been there before. 

He doesn't say, I don't need your fucking hand-me-downs - because this isn't a game of two truths and a fucking lie, and anyway Gerard would see straight through that one.

'No-one cares,' says Gerard. 'They think it's a stage thing.'

'Between you two, maybe. Whatever, Gee. It doesn't matter, okay? It isn't happening again.'

Gerard's mouth twists. 'I just don't like thinking you're on your own.'

'I'm not,' Mikey says. 'I got four people I can't fucking get away from.' He laughs as he says it, but it's not a joke and Gerard knows it. 'You guys are fucking stalking me.'

'You know what I mean,' says Gerard. He breathes out hard through his nose and says, 'Mikey, c'mon. I know what it's like,' and oh, oh okay, they are gonna go there after all.

'It's not the same,' Mikey points out, forcing the words out. 'I'm handling it.'

'Yeah, you are,' says Gerard flatly. 'But you don't have to handle it alone. Frank -'

'What if it isn't Frank I need to help me?' Mikey demands, stung. 'He's not my brother and he doesn't get it, Gee, not the way you do. But, what, you can't even be in the same room as a bottle now? I gotta be clean and sober just to get a fucking hug from my own goddamn brother -' it's unfair and it's a lie, Gerard's never asked him to stop, and his voice is climbing, and he's gotta stop it, the others are sleeping -

'Mikey,' says Gerard, leaning properly into his space with a sick, hurt look on his face. He pulls Mikey into his arms. 'God no.'

Mikey buries his face in Gerard's shoulder. 'I can't sleep,' he confesses. 'Gee, I can't sleep.'

'Shhhhh,' says Gerard, rocking him. 'I know. I gotcha, Mikey. I gotcha.'

Mikey clings. Listens to Gerard's heartbeat as it settles against his ribs, as the bus drives on through the night and three different sets of snoring echo from the bunks. 

Gerard strokes the tips of his fingers down through Mikey's hair, rubs circles on his neck, trying to smooth out the tension and the fear. And it takes a while but it works. Gerard's heart pounds steady as a kick-drum and as Mikey's own heart rate slows, he thinks, muzzily, hey maybe tonight I'll …

He wakes with a start and the mother of all backaches, and doesn't know where he is. He's locked tight around a warm body, a body that's twitching and jerking, making tiny unhappy noises. Familiar unhappy noises, familiar body. Familiar warmth that Mikey just wants to fall asleep on again, but -

'Hey,' he murmurs, shaking his brother gently. 'Wake up, Gerard, it's just a bad dream, c'mon.'

No response. He lifts his head, reluctantly, from Gerard's chest, and taps Gerard's cheek. Cradles his head, strokes his hair, but Gerard's still caught up in whatever's scaring him, so Mikey grits his teeth and gives Gerard a proper shake, both hands cupping his head.

Gerard's eyes fly open, shining dark in the blackness of the bus and what little light there is coming through the window. 'Mikey?'

'Hey,' Mikey whispers. 'I'm here, you're okay.'

'Mikey,' Gerard murmurs, closing his eyes again. He paws for Mikey's shirt, twists his fist in it. Pulls him in, and before Mikey knows what's happening, Gerard's mouth is on his, a soft, damp, panting kiss that Mikey doesn't know how to stop. 

But when Gerard pulls back, Mikey chases him. Another tiny halting kiss, just lip-to-lip, makes Mikey tremble because Gerard hasn't even opened his eyes, and is this - maybe he's dreaming. Maybe they both are. But this isn't the filthy way Gerard kisses when he knows people are watching.

Gerard catches Mikey's bottom lip between his teeth, pulls at it, pulls away, presses a gentle peck to the sore chapped corner of Mikey's gasp-open mouth, then comes back and kisses him slow and wide, flooding, devastating. 

Gerard's teeth are sharp and his lips are soft and he kisses like he's drowning, until Mikey can't help the whimpering noise he makes, and puts his hand palm-flat on Gerard's chest just to catch his breath.

'Fuck,' he says thickly, swallowing against the lump in his throat.

Gerard opens his eyes in shock. 'Shit. Fuck, _Mikey -?_ '

'Gee?'

Gerard is flailing, pushing himself off Mikey. 'I'm so sorry, I -'

He scrambles backwards off the seat, falls on his ass in his hurry to get away from Mikey, and Mikey's still processing, still slow from sleep like it poisoned his system somehow but even though he knows what just happened was bad, the loss of Gerard up against him is worse. 

'Come back,' he says plaintively. 'I need -'

But Gee's gone.

Mikey stays on the sofa, watches the highway lights, when they're there, flash past the window. In the morning he pretends he just happened to be the first one up, rather than never going to bed, and everyone acts like they believe him and none of them actually do. 

***

They're being punished for having had two hotel nights so close together. It's the only explanation. They drive two days pretty much straight to the next venue, and the bottle of vodka in the bunk rolls under Mikey's feet one too many times in the toothache-long night, so out of vengeance he drinks the neck off it, maybe a bit more. Passes out more than buzzed, palm locked around the smooth glass, and in the morning he looks at it with headache-bleary eyes under his blankets and fishes an old flask out of the debris at the bottom of his bag. Just in case. Because hangover or not, that was sleep, and he needs it however he can get it.

They get turfed out on stage directly from the bus, and God knows how all their gear arrived before them without anyone getting a speeding ticket, but from the look of the road crew Mikey would guess they're getting even less sleep than he is. 

It's a good gig, though. The whole place rings like a bell, and the way they have the stage set up means Mikey can tuck himself away next to Bob and have the lighting angles form a kind of curtain between him and the audience. He can't see them, not really, and they have enough fucking amplifiers that he doesn't really hear them, either. He's had enough vodka to take the edge off his jangling nerves. He can do this.

Ray's smiles across the stage are infectious. Frank spends most of the night on his back, legs kicking in the air, the kind of frantic punk-rock shit he pulls when he's in the zone, and Gerard, fuck. Gerard's on _fire_. 

Mikey almost passes out on the roadie who takes his bass from him when he makes it offstage, because they make the mistake of clapping him on the shoulder and the sudden idea that he could actually take the weight off makes his knees weak. Fortunately someone grabs him and hustles him onto the bus before his legs stop working. 

The next venue is the same - they drive through the night and most of the day to get there, and it takes a lot of coffee, okay, a fuckload of coffee, to keep the show going on. That fucks with Mikey's sleeping even more, robs him of catnaps, brings on the shakes, so he resorts to adding slugs of vodka from the flask when Gerard isn't looking in the desperate hope of somehow balancing it out. They play again. Frank catches the edge of his little finger on his high E string and rips part of a callus away, ends up bleeding like a pig all over his pretty white Les Paul and looks really fucking pleased about it for the rest of the set, even if Mikey can see him wincing every time he changes chord. 

Mikey really needs a fucking shower, like, medically, and the back of the bus smells like a swamp, which is probably why they all don't go down there when they're herded back onto the bus, even though they're worn out.

There's an acoustic guitar on the bus, which they've all been known to noodle away on when bored. It's part of the furniture as much as the weird little sofas and the bunks and the toilet. If it belongs to any of them, it's probably Ray's - guitars materialise around Ray, like he summons them from some extra dimension. This one's a beat-up old Ashton, the kind of thing you pay five dollars for in a thrift shop, but hell, it's not like it's for the stage, or for recording with. 

You'd think Ray hadn't been playing guitar for three solid hours, because he picks it up as soon as he sits down. Frank rolls his eyes, but his little finger has a bandaid on it and if he really thought it was lame that Ray's twiddling his way through Crazy Little Thing Called Love he wouldn't keep stealing glances at Ray's hands. 

Gerard curls up next to Frank on the floor with his hood up over the disaster of his hair (three days without shampoo is not good for either of the Way boys. Mikey's entire scalp feels like an oil-slick right now) and puts his head on Frank's shoulder. 

'Mm, hey,' says Frank, and loops his arm around Gerard without looking up from what Ray's doing. 'Dude, that's supposed to be a Dsus4, c'mon, don't fucking half-ass it now.'

'Shut up, Iero,' says Ray. 'Don't backseat drive me, man.' Frank reaches for the guitar, and Ray holds it away, still playing. 'Uh-uh, c'mon, you got a war wound.'

'Tony Iommi plays with three fingers.'

'You _wish_ you were Tony Iommi.'

Mikey hunkers down in his own oversized hoodie, pulls the sleeves down over his hands and lies down on the sofa behind Gerard and Frank, and closes his eyes, and listens to Ray softly play lazy versions of covers and Frank call him out on every tweak, and underneath it, the engine note of the bus. 

Gerard leans back. Mikey's hand is dangling off the edge of the seat, and Gerard's shoulderblade settles against it. His hoodie is old and soft. Mikey drowses, and the bus speeds on. 

Morning again. Coffee. Mikey spikes his again because he feels grey-brained and jittery, sore inside, but this time Frank, poking at the scab on his little finger, sees him do it. He looks at Mikey, entire expression a question. Mikey just shrugs, and drinks up. Tastes like shit, but coffee on the road usually does. And the gut-clench feeling of knowing he has to go out onto the yawning fucking void of a stage again recedes, so hey, it's working.

They've got one more gig, two more nights on the road, and then it'll be a hotel. Mikey can't wait for the hot water part, but he doesn't like the idea of getting off the bus and losing the safe sensation of being this tightly hemmed in.

He finally gets his turn in the tiny onboard bathroom, brushes his teeth and then runs his fingers through his fringe and immediately regrets it, because ugh. Gross. He scrubs his face with tepid basin water, and his hands, and figures, at least the bags under his eyes are in keeping with the band aesthetic.

Everyone's on zombie-mode. Mikey's pretty sure no-one even looks up as he comes out of the bathroom, but he gives it a few seconds before he knocks back another slug, just to be sure Frank isn't watching him. 

He's too exhausted and bored to do anything but lie still while they're driving, cramped up on a seat or in his bunk if he makes it that far, and he's not the only one. They're like a five-headed, ten-legged narcoleptic puppy on this drive. In between coffee and food stops they fall asleep in piles in the lounge on the bus, they stop being able to give fucks about ladders so the bottom bunks become common property. It's the best and the worst of the van days rolled into one because they're all squeezed so tight together it's disgusting, but Mikey finally feels safe enough to let himself breathe.

Frank's a constant presence. If he doesn't have Gerard within arm's reach it's probably because he's got that arm around Mikey, and when they're on stage that night Frank fretboard-watches Mikey half the time, standing between him and the crowd, and the other half of the time, he's on his knees in front of Gerard like he's worshipping him.

The next night on the bus, the last stinking, sweaty, inside-out-underwear night on the bus, Gerard climbs into the bunk Mikey's sprawled in and the way he breathes slow on the back of his neck, one hand resting on the dip of his waist, is worth all of it.

'You gonna be okay?' Gerard asks quietly, stroking Mikey's neck.

'Getting there,' whispers Mikey into the pillow that has the bottle, three quarters empty now, under it. 'You?'

Gerard doesn't answer, but his soft, asleep breathing is enough of an answer to let Mikey follow him down.

***

Mikey can't help it, the noise he makes when the hot water hits his scalp is undeniably orgasmic. And he is not ashamed, because fuck, yes. Nothing feels as good as a shower you've needed for days.

'C'mon man,' yells Gerard through the bathroom door. Mikey smirks and fumbles for the shampoo. 'Hurry the fuck up!'

A very old part of Mikey considers taking his time and running the hot water out before letting Gerard have a turn, but instead he rinses off quick and shuts off the shower so Gerard can have a decent wash too. And his reward is the smile Gerard flicks him when they pass in the doorway. 

Frank is lounging against the wall in the corridor like he's waiting to pick someone up for a date when Mikey heads out, Gerard hopefully like thirty seconds behind him. Mikey wasn't aware that someone was him until Frank leans up and kisses him on the cheek, and he's about to say _no, Frank_ \- but then Gerard comes out and all Frank says is, 'C'mon, you two, I'm starving.'

Gerard looks at Frank, at Mikey, at Frank again, and narrows his eyes. 'Yeah,' he says. 'Breakfast.'

Mikey's good, all the way to the diner, he's fine, he's got Gerard and Bob on either side and Frank's up front with Ray, but as soon as they get seated he's aware that the waitress has recognised Gerard, and the ease that the sleep and the shower gave him start to seep away. 

Gerard makes for the bathroom and Mikey reaches for his pocket, but Frank lays a hand over his fingers before he can grab what he's after. 'It's frigging ten am,' he says quietly. 'If you Irish up that coffee again I'm gonna fucking drink it for you, milk or no milk.'

'Easy, Frankie,' says Ray softly. 

'What are you, my mom?' Mikey demands. 'Is this an intervention?'

Bob shakes his head at Mikey from across the table. He's leaning against the back of the booth, playing lookout like a meerkat. 'Do you need one?'

'We just … don't want anything to throw Gee,' says Ray. Frank is glaring at him over the table, though. Not quite the whole truth, Mikey guesses. Oh good.

'Hey,' says Bob quietly, nodding. Gerard is coming out of the bathroom, wiping his hands on the thighs of his jeans. He slides back into the booth next to Frank, and that's two people wedging Mikey into the corner, and that helps. Frank takes his hand off Mikey's pocket. And Mikey drinks his coffee black and unspiked and if he keeps his head down more than usual no-one says anything about it. 

Under the table, Frank hooks one foot around Mikey's ankle. But looking past him, Mikey realises, Gerard's body is as tense and thrumming as his own.

Fuck.

***

'Gee's not actually okay, is he,' says Mikey to Frank the next time they get a moment alone. Frank's been talking amplifier settings with one of the tech crew and they've gone off to find something, which means now he's staring down at his pedalboard and frowning. Ray's doing the same thing at the far end of the stage except with three guitar techs and Gerard hovering over him, and Bob's in a world of his own that involves a lot of crashing cymbals and his snare drum upside down with someone doing some kind of arcane ritual on the snare itself.

Frank looks over his shoulder at Mikey. 'No. But he's getting there.' He lifts his gaze, and Mikey twists and follows it to where Gerard's watching Ray. He's so still when he's not performing, like he saves everything he's got for when the lights go up. 'We just gotta help him.'

'He doesn't care,' says Mikey. 'If I drink. He told me it'd just make it weirder if I stopped too.'

Frank gives Mikey a look that could peel paint. He stops his fingers on his fretboard. 'Yeah, I know what he said.'

Mikey shrugs helplessly. What does Frank want from him?

Frank reaches out and presses down on Mikey's shoulder, which is when Mikey realises he's jittering. He pulls Mikey in, not to hug or anything, but just til they're close enough to talk low. 'Just lay off the vodka at breakfast,' he says. 'Please, Mikes?'

'I -' 

Frank said it like a joke, but his eyes are flicking between Mikey and Gerard and Mikey doesn't know a way to explain how it helps to steady his nerves without sounding like he _needs_ a fucking intervention. 

So he shrugs again and says, 'okay, sure, whatever.'

Frank's smile is blinding, and then he snorts and points. 'I think you might wanna turn around,' he says.

Mikey revolves and finds his tech is holding his Mustang bass and looking apologetic about it. 'I had to restring the Jag-bass again,' he says. 'It's not bedded in yet, but this one is sounding good, if you -'

'Yeah, that works,' says Mikey, taking the thing and slinging it over his shoulder. 'Thanks.'

'Guess that means we should start making some fucking noise then, huh?' asks Frank, as the crew clear the stage so the band can put it through its paces.

Mikey can't help smiling. Frank does like making fucking noise.

But in the dark pool of shadow just offstage, afterwards, Frank manages to find thirty seconds where there's no-one else around to kiss Mikey's breath away, til everything in his head goes quiet.

'You do want this,' says Frank softly. 'I fucking know you do. And you need something to take you outside your goddamn head. Are you gonna let me help you, Mikes?'

And the thing is, it works better than the alcohol. Settles him faster, makes the jangle of his nerves even just from soundcheck smooth out - so that must be why Mikey ducks his head and kisses Frank again.

'I guess.'

Frank gropes Mikey's ass, which makes Mikey start because, dude, this is basically in public, but then he comes up with Mikey's flask.

Unscrews the cap, staring Mikey right in the eye, and drinks what's left in it straight down.

*** 

Frank kneels in front of Gerard on stage and Gerard's hand on his face is kind and controlling, and he sings You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us like it's their private love song for everyone in the room to hear, as if it's dirty laundry he wants to air, like he wants to confess, _we're just two men as God had made us. Too much, too late, just not enough of this,_ and he blows Mikey a kiss over Frank's bowed head.

***

They're back on the bus again. Mikey joins in with the chorus of complaints but silently cheers, crawls onboard like a grateful rat back into its rathole.

He wedges himself into a corner of the lounge with a blanket, sort of out of the way, watching as Bob gets out his book and Gerard, after flitting around and bouncing off the furnishings every time the bus hits a bump in the road, clearly itching for a drink just to have something to hold, something to do, does the same. They read, and Ray noodles away on his guitar with his eyes half closed and his cheek practically resting on the body. 

Frank's ripped his finger open again, because it's the kind of thing that recurs if you're not careful with it and this is Frank we're talking about. Mikey doubts he even felt it when he did it. He forges on past the rest of them to the bathroom. Mikey figures he's probably just trying to get the bleeding stopped, but he hopes Frank cleans the fucking thing out as well as patching it up, because guitar strings are fucking gross and the last thing they need is a case of blood poisoning. Their days of surprise band trips to hospital are supposed to be over.

When Frank emerges, Mikey's expecting him to go join in with the others, but instead he curls up with Mikey, steals a corner of blanket, and acts for all intents and purposes like he's sleepy.

It's nice. Frank changed his shirt in the green room after the show and he must have had one remaining actually clean one in his bag because he smells faintly of laundry powder under residual sweat and the hand soap from the bus's bathroom. Mikey sighs and snuggles his head down.

Ray's got a beer. Mikey's gaze is idly following it as he picks it up, drinks, puts it down, nearly knocks it over with his elbow changing tack from pretty Spanish-sounding arpeggios to something that chugs even on an acoustic. Bob catches it before it can spill. Ray smiles at him, takes another drink, and then it's Knocking on Heaven's door for a couple of bars, becomes Free Falling, wanders into Big Yellow Taxi, all the covers you play to learn chords, as Ray zones out, starts to actually relax, come down from his stage high.

Mikey can lie still but he can't change the tempo of his post-gig heart, and he starts wondering if that bottle of vodka is still rolling round the bottom of his bunk. He hasn't had a chance to get anything else, and Frank took the flask, that fucker, once he'd drunk the contents, so the bottle still being there is Mikey's last hope for a couple of days, unless he wants to start stealing Ray's beers. The bus gets cleaned out when they stop for hotel nights, but anything personal they leave behind usually doesn't get touched.

It's probably still there. Mikey could -

Except then Frank's hand starts wandering up his thigh.

Mikey darts a look at him but Frank's sleepy eyed and zoned out. The foot he has sticking out of the blanket is tapping in time with what Ray's playing. Mikey settles. Frank's handsy. That's all.

But Frank's fingers find Mikey's fly. Settle there, cupping him, and Mikey starts to get hard, like really fucking fast. It's not fair, and it's not like he can fight Frank off like this, not without letting everyone know what's going on.

Plus he wants it. He wouldn't have thought of it, and the proximity of the others is setting off his alarms like crazy, but now it's on the table it seems like the best worst idea and it's really hard to say no to those when all the blood in your body is rushing down. Suddenly the bottle under his pillow isn't the most pressing thing on his mind.

Frank flexes his fingers, putting pressure on the head of Mikey's dick, and Mikey makes a noise, he can't help it.

Gerard looks up, zeroes in on them immediately. Mikey freezes, tries to force the universe to just kill him already, but Frank doesn't stop, eases Mikey's zip down, and Gerard's face is so incredibly impassive, Mikey can't tell what the fuck he's thinking, but he brings a finger up to his lips. His meaning is clear: shh.

And he doesn't stop watching, as Frank slides his hand into Mikey's fly and wraps his fingers around Mikey's bare, blood-hot cock.

Mikey's body twists into the touch without his permission. Frank wraps his other arm around him and pulls his head down so he can mush his face in Frank's t-shirt and bite down, hold on. He can still see Gerard out of the corner of one slitted eye, but now Gerard's looking at Frank. 

What the fuck, what the everloving fuck, is going on?

Frank leans his head on top of Mikey's, and strokes Mikey so fucking slow and delicate and careful it's like it creates a fucking time paradox. Mikey has never been this close, this fast, on this little touch. His dick is helplessly jerking, making little spurts of wet every time, smearing his belly and the flies of his jeans and the blanket and Frank's wrist - he can feel everything it touches, every little wet kiss it makes.

'Doing okay down there?' Frank murmurs in Mikey's ear. Mikey twitches, but he's desperately trying to pretend he's asleep because, fuck, what if Bob looks up from his book or Ray turns around to see what Gerard is fucking _blatantly staring at_? 'Okay then,' and Frank squeezes, rubs his rough thumb-pad over the leaking wet tip of Mikey's cock and that's all it takes.

Is it possible to pass out from coming?

Mikey peels his eyes open when Frank gets up, presumably to wash his fucking hands again, and Gerard's face is as red as his favourite photoshoot tie and he's staring down at his comic in what looks like shock.

To his credit, he gives it like a full minute before he gets up calmly. 'Anyone need anything while I'm up?' he asks. 'Finished my comic.'

And it'd almost be believable if the hinges on the bathroom door weren't so fucking loud.

Bob is looking straight at Mikey as Gerard leaves. And when that screech of the door closing happens a second time, Bob's expression gets an edge to it. Shit. This is exactly the kind of band drama Mikey didn't fucking want.

Bob puts his book down carefully and comes and sits next to Mikey, the opposite side to the spot Frank just vacated. Ray doesn't look up, but his spine stiffens. He's listening, he just doesn't want to muscle in.

'Don't just say yes,' Bob says. 'But I'm gonna ask you if you're okay, and I need an actual honest answer, Mikey.'

'Does this look that bad from the outside?' Mikey asks back at him. And he wants to know, he does, because he trusts Bob to tell him the truth. Bob's not tangled up in this shit, but he cares.

Bob shakes his head. 'On paper, yeah. It's fucked up, Mikey. You know Frank and Gerard are -'

'Yeah,' says Mikey sardonically, because how stupid does he look, and is that what Bob thinks is the problem here? 'I know. It's not exactly a big bus.'

Bob snorts. 'Trust me, dude, I know that. I really know that.'

That makes Mikey wince. 'Uh. Sorry.'

'Could be worse,' says Bob, shrugging it off. 'This could be a van. Doesn't matter, anyway - answer the question, Mikey. Are you okay?'

Mikey doesn't know what to say. No? But yes? Can you be both? 'If I'm not, it isn't because of this,' he tries.

Bob opens his mouth to say something else but then Frank comes back smelling of soap, plops himself down right next to Mikey again but this time just tucks the blanket around Mikey's knees and doesn't get back under it.

The movement and jostling make one thing very fucking apparent: Mikey's jeans are sticky and getting cold. Ugh. Gross. 

'Hey, Frank,' says Bob. There's an undertone of redneck-dad-y'know-son-I-own-three-shotguns to his voice that Mikey really does not fucking appreciate. But Frank just lets it roll off him, smiles up at Bob and doesn't move.

'Hey, Bob,' he says sunnily. He knows. He fucking knows exactly what that looked like, because it looked like what it was, and he knows everyone knows he was in that bathroom with Gerard, and he knows what that looked like too. And he doesn't care. Fucking Frank, why does he always have to fucking fight?

And of course now Ray looks over, and now, oh great. Fantastic. Because that's when Gerard, still fucking pink-cheeked, also decides to return from the bathroom, and there's a five-way deadlock.

'I'm going to bed,' says Mikey, because the tension is wound so tight he can hear the plink-plink noises before the inevitable.

Bob looks like he wants to add 'alone' to the end of Mikey's statement, but he doesn't. No-one else even moves as Mikey picks up the blanket and wraps it around himself as if he's cold rather than trying to hide the fact that he's got underwear full of come and undone flies, and shuffles off down the bus. If they're gonna have this argument they can do it without Mikey. Bass strings kill people when they snap.

From the bathroom, trying to wipe himself off and banging his elbows way too much, he hears a lot of violent whispering.

When he finally gets clean enough, he goes and fishes around in his bunk, but the vodka bottle's gone. And thanks to Frank, he doesn't have a flask any more either. He kicks the side of the bunk vengefully but that's, y'know, about as helpful as you'd expect. So he strips off his clothes and faceplants his bunk in his underwear and waits. 

The sound of Ray's guitar has entirely stopped. The roar of the bus engine drowns out most of the talking, but occasionally words will filter through. Mostly words like 'fuck' and 'serious' and 'Frank', that last one mostly Ray and mostly exasperated. 

Mikey should have stayed out there and argued his case, maybe, but would it have done any good?

One by one, the others make their way to the bunks. Ray first, Mikey would know his tread anywhere. Then Bob, Gerard. Frank last, Frank always last, and Mikey's half expecting him to stop but he just clambers up to his own bunk and then the back of the bus is as quiet as you'd expect a shoebox full of dudes to be at night - so basically mostly snoring, grunting, farting … 

Mikey jams his pillow over his head. But the shitty mattress just buzzes with the engine shudder, and this road is fucking appalling because the bus keeps slamming into bumps and potholes like every two seconds, Mikey would swear.

He pulls his head back out so he can breathe, at least, and is assaulted by a smell like something fucking _died_. Fuck this noise. He drags at his bedding until the blankets come free and stalks back down the bus to flop on the sofa, accidentally kicking Ray's guitar in the process, and then he has to find the damn thing and damp the strings with his hand to try and kill the ringing, stubs his toe on something that turns out to be a fucking beer bottle, and by the end of that he's probably woken all four of the others up, so that's just fucking great. 

There's footsteps. Mikey pulls all of his blankets over his head on the sofa and does his best impression of a lump of rock. When he peeks out, there's a tiny line of light around the cracks in the bathroom door. The toilet flushes. He hides under his covers again. 

Someone picks up his legs (how they identified which end was his legs Mikey doesn't know) and sits down under them, keeping Mikey's feet in their lap. 

'I know you're awake.'

Mikey kicks vaguely at Gerard, but he pulls his head out of the blankets. 'So,' he says. 'Are Dad and Dad going to let me go to the prom with Frank?'

Gerard sighs heavily through his nose. 'Fuck if I know when it happened, but you are a goddamn adult, Mikey.'

Mikey wonders if it was Gerard that found the vodka bottle in his bed. Probably not. Or if he did he wouldn't have been the one to take it. 

'Yeah, maybe,' says Mikey. 'But … if I fuck up the band cos I can't keep it in my pants … that's what they're worried about, right?'

'Would having some kind of band meeting to decide who you can sleep with fix that?' Gerard wants to know. He's fiddling with the blanket hem. It slides further off Mikey's legs. The cold air hitting the inside of his thighs makes Mikey shiver. He curls up tighter, and Gerard shifts with him so he's still got Mikey's legs over his thighs. 

'I'm sorry I'm such a fuckup,' says Mikey quietly. 'I don't - I never meant any of this to happen, Gee.'

Gerard huffs a laugh, looking down at his lap. 'Neither did I, when - fuck. You know. I dunno, Mikey, maybe being a fuckup is a family trait.'

Mikey lurches to sit up, losing his grip on the blanket in the process, so now it's pretty obvious he has fuck all on under it, but he has to be able to see Gerard's face. 'You're not a fuckup,' he says fiercely, grabbing Gerard's hand where it's sitting on his knee, ignoring the hot flush that spikes through his veins. 'You're the strongest fucking person I know.'

He means it. He doesn't know how Gerard does it. Stays clean, when there's so many screaming ghosts to drown out. 

'Anyway,' says Gerard, as if Mikey hadn't said a word, but blushing hot, shrugging. 'It's actually Frank's ability to keep it in his pants Bob and Ray are worried about. Given, you know. The stage-kissing thing as well.'

He looks upset, and oh, shit. Because they will have dragged him into this, even though they keep saying they wanna keep Gerard out of band drama. Gerard has fuck all coping mechanisms left that haven't already been deemed unhealthy. And Mikey ran off instead of taking his telling-off like a fucking man, and left him to have another one shot down. 

Maybe Frank can handle the Bob and Ray coparenting show, but Mikey should have been there to back Gerard.

Mikey's about to apologise, but Gerard stops him before he can start. 'We sorted it,' he says. 'I mean, all they really wanna be sure of is that we're okay, right? None of us can do anything about how fucked up we are but at least we can be okay.'

He gets off the sofa and pulls Mikey up too. Mikey loses the blanket entirely in the process, it puddles around his feet and he stands there in his come-stained underwear, holding his brother's hand. 'Bedtime,' says Gerard hoarsely, his gaze flicking down then back up hurriedly. 

'Gee -'

'You need to sleep, Mikey, that's the one thing we all did fucking agree on. And -' he lowers his voice, 'I talked to Frank. You gotta let him help you, man. I know you want my help and I'm gonna be here for you better, I swear, but I know what it's like, and … there's shit I can't help with. Frank can.'

He picks up the blanket and wraps it around Mikey's shoulders again, leads him to the back of the bus. The stench has kinda dissipated, which is something at least. Gerard strokes Mikey's disastrous hair, finger-combs it distractedly for a minute, and then shoves him unceremoniously into his bunk just like he used to shove him into swimming pools when they were younger.

In the bunk above, Bob's snoring is so obviously fake Mikey wonders why he's bothering. But eventually it gentles, evens out, and the sensation of someone else listening fades. Mikey guesses really he should be glad he's got Bob looking out for him, having his back like this, but at the same time as he's grateful someone gives a shit, it pisses him off to be spied on.

There's a noise from the bunk above Gerard. Frank's bunk. Someone climbs down, soft thud when they hit the floor, and then Mikey freezes, on his side, facing the wall, as the shitty foam mattress under him shifts. He can feel Frank's heat radiating against his back, even though there's clear space between them. 

'Where's my fucking vodka, Iero?' Mikey murmurs, barely more than a modulated breath. 

'I thought you said you'd let me help you?' Frank says at the same pitch and level. He reaches out and pulls Mikey's shoulder until he rolls over to face him, then fits his fingers under Mikey's chin, looks him in the eye, tips his head up. Leans in, fits his mouth to Mikey's and kisses him slowly, uses teeth til Mikey opens up, then slides his tongue in. Mikey's eyes roll back in his head and he gropes for Frank, needing to hold something to keep himself steady and in this rolling, juddering bus the only thing that's steady is Frank's bare shoulders. 

Frank moves, pushing across him, til Mikey's flat to the mattress under him, and Frank slides his hands to Mikey's arms, pins them crooked up against the back wall of the bunk. His fingers are tight, grind the bones in Mikey's wrists and it feels so good. So safe. He kisses hard, pressing Mikey down. 

When he pulls away it's only by millimetres. 'What do you want, Mikes?'

Mikey doesn't know, there's no oxygen in his blood and no blood in his brain, so he just shakes his head. 'This?'

Frank's mouth curves against Mikey's. 'Not specific enough.'

His hands are gentle when he takes them off Mikey's wrists. They smooth down Mikey's body, trace the flatness of his chest, skirt his nipples, follow the lines of his ribs, and all the while Frank's weight is on Mikey's hips and his mouth is on Mikey's like he's trying to bring him back to life. 

He has to lift to get at Mikey's briefs. They're clinging with more than just the elasticity of the fabric they're made of, and Frank eases them down his pelvis, down his legs like they're stockings and he needs to be careful not to ladder them, until he can flick them off Mikey's feet and bring them up between them clenched in his fist. 

Mikey's breath catches in his throat, and he has to swallow, because he has a sudden certainty he knows where those are going, because he's making too much noise, and what if - 

'Want me to gag you?' Frank whispers. 'Tell me what you want.'

Mikey _doesn't know_. He shakes his head, mute and drooling at where Frank might put the cloth in his hand. 

'No gag then,' says Frank, and he reaches for Mikey's hands. 'Don't worry, Mikes, got another use for these.' He winds the underwear around Mikey's wrists, hands through the holes, twisted up tight. Now when he goes back down Mikey's body he does it with teeth, with what little fingernail he's got that isn't cut and chewed short, because fretboards scratch and those don't heal like bandmates do. 

He does take pity when Mikey starts to choke, trying to stop himself making noises, and presses a couple of fingers into Mikey's mouth. Mikey sucks on them gratefully, works his tongue against them as something to distract himself from Frank's lower lip dragging over his pebbling nipple. 

Doesn't work. Mikey can't help making a tiny, high noise in his throat and nose when Frank's teeth close around that nipple. Frank pulls off, sucking, leaving a wet trail in his wake. 'Ssh,' he breathes. 'You decided what you want yet?'

Mikey's teeth are clamped around Frank's fingers but he didn't realise until now, until he has to unclench his jaw, shake his head no. What does Frank want from him? A fucking plan of attack? Frank pulls his hand free and drops his head back to Mikey's nipple, his wet hand to the other one, a double assault on Mikey's defences that make him pant, held down by Frank's weight. Frank keeps moving, nipping at the arch of the base of Mikey's ribs, his hipbones, sliding down between his thighs to get at them. 

He jams himself, hunched over, at the base of the bunkbed, and breathes over Mikey's cock. 

'Tell me,' he whispers. 

'Nnng,' is all Mikey can manage. Frank climbs back up his body, like he's trying to touch every inch of Mikey's skin, and then turns him over again. On his belly, with his hands bound up in his own dirty, shameful underwear under the pillow where up until two nights ago he was hiding a different kind of secret. Frank straddles him, and Mikey shivers, sweats, feeling Frank's cock hard in the dip above his ass as Frank starts to massage his neck and the perpetual blue-purple knot of bruise that makes up his right shoulder, where his bass hangs like a millstone. 

'What do you want, Mikey?'

Mikey's breathless under Frank's weight and he says, helplessly, 'this,' again, but he knows as he says it it won't be enough for Frank even if it's the whole truth and nothing but the truth. 'This,' he begs in a microscopic voice, 'please, just keep me down, please Frank -'

Frank mouths at Mikey's ear. 'And?' He's flatter to Mikey's spine now and his cock is dragging over the skin of Mikey's ass, grinding into the cleft of it. Mikey wants it. God, he wants it.

'And - _fuck_ -'

'Want this?' Frank asks, flirting his fingers at Mikey's hole.  
Mikey sobs into the pillow. 'Yes.'

But Frank doesn't push, doesn't do what Mikey desperately needs even now he's found the words for it. No. He catches his teeth on Mikey's earlobe and then says, 'But you want Gee to do it, don't you.'

Mikey shudders, his body remembering the way Gerard used to hug Mikey so tight, as if he could keep the world out, the way he used to feel in bed at night dead to the world and hanging on to Mikey like Mikey was going to slip away from him, the way there's been this yawning grey cold gap in Mikey's life since Gerard got clean and stopped sneaking into his bed reeking of alcohol and bad decisions.

No, he doesn't want that, he doesn't - 

The feel of Gerard's sleepy, warm mouth, though, sober and hungry ...

'Tell me,' says Frank, so hard against him, so low, so deep. 'Tell me the truth, or you don't get what you want, Mikey.'

Mikey tries to thrash under him but Frank won't give him even the skin of an inch. 'Does it matter, Frank?' he pleads under his breath. 'Who fucking cares, he can't, we can't -'

'Say his name,' Frank murmurs in Mikey's ear, easing the wet tip of his cock against Mikey's hole, fuck, so wet, slick and warm, and he hasn't fingered Mikey, he must have brought lube with him, fuck, fuck, it feels enormous and he's just pushing, just a tiny, tiny amount of pressure that's building enough to make Mikey squirm his legs wider. 'Say his name, say what you want, Mikes, I can do this for as long as it takes.'

Frank's running his hands up and down Mikey's back, inching himself up and getting his knees under him, so that he can bear down on Mikey more. He's sliding in, despite the tension Mikey's thrumming with, but it's so fucking slow. 'You gotta say it,' he says. He's not anywhere near all the way in yet, the head of him is breaching Mikey wide, holding him open like this, and Mikey's shaking, fucking shaking, trying to push back, but Frank's got him pinned like a bug. 'Say it, Mikey. Or you don't get it. Told you I'd help you, told you I'd give you what you need? You need to be _honest_.'

His voice is so quiet and far-away, after having it right in his ear, Mikey can barely hear it over his own breathing.

'If you say it, I'll give you something. Reward you,' Frank promises. His mouth is back on Mikey's ear, his teeth are scraping the lobe, his breath is hot and wet. 'I'll give it to you like he would.'

Mikey's whole body shocks.

'I know how he fucks, Mikey. I know how he'd take care of you. Tell me you want that and I can give it to you.'

'Frank, _please_ -'

'Wrong name,' Frank says. He stops moving. The shudder of the bus underneath them does unspeakable things to Mikey combined with the way Frank's got him wedged open. It's not enough, it's so incredibly not fucking enough. But Mikey knows Frank, knows there's no way he's gonna let up. If Mikey doesn't surrender …

'God,' he croaks, biting the pillow. 

Frank huffs the tiniest laugh. 'Still the wrong name.' He churns his hips a little, and Mikey's got tears in his eyes now, actual, honest to god tears, and a catch in his throat, and his fingers are starting to cramp wedged up against the head of the bunk. 'C'mon, Mikes,' Frank cajoles. 'C'mon. Let me help you.'

'I hate you,' Mikey sobs. 

'So say. His. Name,' says Frank, twitching his hips with every word, a cruel goddamn mockery of fucking, and Mikey's eyes are swimming, he's crying.

'Gee,' he says, a tiny wet sound in this bunk full of tiny wet sounds. 'Fuck, Gee - please - I -'

'Good boy,' croons Frank, and suddenly his weight is back on Mikey, holding him firm, and he rolls his hips deep and hard and slots into Mikey on the full, forcing him so wide it aches. Frank's teeth find the nape of Mikey's neck for a second. 'That's my good boy.'

Mikey wonders weakly if his reward has started, if that's what Gerard calls Frank, if that's what Frank thinks he'd call Mikey given the opportunity.

He starts to wriggle, trying to pick his ass up and back into Frank, to fuck back the way he knows Frank likes, even though he feels like he's made of wood and metal and all his moving parts have seized. But Frank lays a forearm down over the back of his neck.

'I got you,' Frank murmurs. 'He likes things slow, your brother,' he adds, grinding into Mikey like a tidal wave. 'Likes to control the action,' he adds, and there's a smile in his voice. Mikey would put money, good money, _big_ money, on it not mattering how much Gerard likes to be in control, if Frank wants to fight him.

But that pressure on Mikey's neck is hypnotic and the way Frank's fucking him so deep, he can't imagine wanting to fight this.

So he lets it sink him into the bunk, gives up, really gives up, and his fingers uncramp and his spine liquefies, and Frank rumbles in his lungs and snaps his hips harder. 'Yeah, Mikes,' he purrs. 'There you go. He's gonna love this.'

And Mikey's too far gone to protest, to say no, they can't, they won't, or find the lie in the forefront of his mind and say he doesn't want to. No. He lets Frank's deep, dark fucking rock him like a boat on the ocean, rub his dick over and over and chafe his bitten nipples into the thin sheet, finally lets himself actually think about Gerard, fucking him like this.

He thinks of Gerard's gorgeous fucking body over him like this, of Gerard's mouth at his ear, Gerard's sweat on his skin, his name in Gerard's hoarse whisper, and realises too late that he's going to come soon and he's going to come hard and he has absolutely no say over it.

'You close?' Frank asks. He sounds strained, teeth gritted in his tone.

'Yes,' Mikey breathes pleadingly.

'Who's getting you there?' Frank grinds out. 'Who you gonna spill for all over this bed, huh? Whose name you gonna say? Because he likes that, he likes you to call him when you come. And you know he's not asleep, right?'

Mikey's hot and raw and done. Worn out and worn down and smoothed all his rough edges out for once. 'Gee,' he says like a prayer, too loud, too low, and bites his pillow, tears again in his eyes and dick unloading into the sheet, and Frank behind him suddenly ramming his cock into Mikey as far as it will go.

'Jesus Christ, Mikey, fuck, oh, you're perfect, you're fucking perfect.'

Mikey doesn't know what he is any more. Frank eases himself out of Mikey as slow as he eased himself in, and immediately Mikey starts to feel Frank's come leaking out of him.

He feels spacey, bruised, dizzy and drunk on skin. Frank kisses him one more time, and climbs out of his bunk.

From somewhere that sounds very high and far away, Mikey thinks he hears a little choke, but maybe he dreamed it.

***

Mikey wakes up literally glued to his bedding. Every muscle in his body feels lax, warm. He burrows his head into his pillow and breathes a long slow sigh out. It's weirdly quiet. Weirdly still, and he realises he must be alone on the bus.

There's no engine noise. The bus has stopped, and if he concentrates he can hear voices, but they're muffled, like they're outside. Before he can peel his gummy eyes open and check, though, there's a pressure on the edge of his mattress and someone starts working the blanket off his body. 

He rolls away, clutching at the bedding. 

'Don't,' he mumbles. He knows he has to get up, he knows they've got another photoshoot and then lunch and then another soundcheck, another gig, another night on the bus, and can he just not? If he just buries himself here he doesn't have to get up and see what bits of him are going to get shot off today.

It's … right now, he feels so good. Can't he just keep it that way?

A hand finds its way into his hair, cradles his head, and he opens his eyes to find Gerard brandishing a washcloth. 'The longer you leave this, the colder it's gonna get, dude,' he says.

Mikey resists the urge to bury his face in Gerard's thigh like a five year old. But he does start to struggle free of the blanket.

'Uh, hey, whoa,' says Gerard after a second. 'Guess you can probably take this from here, huh?'

Which is when Mikey realises he's butt naked under the blanket and also still has his fucking underwear wrapped around one wrist like a friendship bracelet. Gerard hands him the wet washcloth and gets off the bunk in a hurry.

But he leans himself against the other bunks instead of leaving, looking up at the ceiling of the bus while Mikey makes grossed out noises and wipes himself clean and pink.

'You doing okay?'

Gerard's tentative asking it, like he doesn't know if he's allowed to, and Mikey suddenly realises it's not just small talk.

Gerard heard them last night. He must have, because otherwise why the fuck would he have brought Mikey a _washcloth_ and not a cup of the coffee that's perfuming the air around him. 

Mikey wrestles a pair of jeans out of his overstuffed bag, a long sleeved shirt he knows has holes he can stick his thumbs through and glove his hands in. He finds a beanie as well and figures it looks easier than the physics problem of combing his hair, which he knows he's blushing all the way up to and doesn't know how to stop.

Gerard _heard him_ last night. And he should be fucking horrified by that but the blood isn't just rushing to his face right now.

'Mikey?'

'I'm fine,' Mikey says, trying out a smile, stuffing the beanie over his head and hopping out of his bunk. 

Gerard looks at him critically, fixes the hair that's sticking out from under the hat, and then tries a smile of his own, which looks just as awkward as the one Mikey's trying. The air between them is kinda charged, like it gets on stage, and Mikey drops his eyes but Gerard steps in, and kisses him softly on the cheek. 

'You look good, Mikey,' Gerard says. His voice is hoarse.

There's a thumping from the other end of the bus, like great big clumsy feet in Converse, and the moment breaks. But Mikey's smile doesn't go away, and neither does Gerard's. 

***

Mikey's standing bowed over his Jag-bass, which is hopefully now over whatever mystery setup issue it's been having, when someone comes up behind him and wraps their arms around his waist.

'Saw you talking to your brother earlier,' says Frank.

'Well, we are in the same band,' Mikey points out, halting his hands on the strings. 'Talking comes in handy every so often.'

'Mm,' says Frank against the nape of Mikey's neck. 'Nice to see you two worked that out.'

Mikey's not dumb. You don't need to be psychic to figure out where Frank's going with this, hands crawling down Mikey's body. He pulls the pick of out Mikey's fingers and puts it in his pocket, pats it flat, hits E on his way back up and smiles into Mikey's skin.

Mikey hangs his head, lets Frank balance him, and waits. Doesn't fight.

'Did you let him clean you up?' Frank asks.

'No. Brought me a washcloth, but,' Mikey shrugs. 'I can wash myself, Frank.'

'Would you have let him if he'd tried?'

Mikey shivers, Frank's unzipping his fly, knuckles bumping against the Jag-bass, hard dull knocks. 

'Guess so,' he admits. Because Gerard was inches from him, and Mikey doesn't have it in him to pull away any more, just like he doesn't have it in him to take Frank's hands out of his underwear. 

'Would you have let him do this?' Frank asks, looping his fingers around Mikey's cock. 'Would you let him touch you like this?'

'With the washcloth?' Mikey breathes.

Frank laughs. 'With whatever he thought you needed.'

'Frank -'

'He liked hearing you say his name last night. Didn't tell him I was gonna do that. Figured he'd been good too.'

Mikey makes a noise about five octaves above anything he can achieve instrumentally. Frank starts to stroke him, quick and firm to get him off, no bullshit, and nothing like the shaking, sex-cult teasing in the dark last night.

'Was that really -' Mikey starts, forcing the words out. 'How he -'

'The first time Gee fucked me it was in the recording booth for Bullets while the rest of you assholes were passed out somewhere,' Frank says. 'Stuffed half his fucking hand in my mouth to keep me quiet, wedged me into the soundproofing so I couldn't even touch myself, and gave it to me so hard I had to do the next take sitting. And that was the _next morning_. You ask me, I went easy on you, Mikes.'

He twists his wrist, the same cramped up curve he makes going from open chords to barres, and Mikey whimpers, jittering his hips and making his Jag-bass swing. He's panting hard now, knees knocking, ready to come and knowing if Frank doesn't catch him he'll fall, but knowing it'll be okay either way.

'They're finishing up out there,' Frank says softly, and it takes Mikey a moment to realise he means the support act, whose name Mikey really should know but right now he's having trouble remembering his own. 'Gonna need you to be good for me again, okay? C'mon, Mikey. Come for me, yeah?'

Mikey whines, ruts into Frank's hand. He wants to, he wants to so bad, but he can't just -

'Need it, Mikes,' Frank murmurs in his ear. 'Need it for Gee -'

If there's a rest of that sentence Mikey misses it.

Frank does catch him, takes his boneless weight and spins him around, up against the wall, and shoves his own hand into his mouth, licking and sucking Mikey's come off it.

Mikey tries clumsily to grab him, wants that mouth on him, wants kisses, but Frank shakes his head and finishes what he's doing, catching the last smear on his wrist with a curl of his tongue like it's the dripping remains of an ice cream cone.

'Nuh-uh,' he says. 'Told you, you're not the only one who deserves a reward.'

And then he pushes Mikey towards the stage.

***

Mikey's actually enjoying this gig. Maybe it's the acoustics, which are good, like, unusually good for a venue this big, or maybe it's the way the band is playing - they're tighter tonight than they have been all tour, like it's all finally bedding in.

The stage doesn't feel like an impassable gulf tonight. Mikey and Bob are _on_ from the first moment, and it doesn't matter if he looks away, or moves around - every time he looks back, every time he checks in, they're still on, still in sync. So he ventures out of the space at the back, out towards the lights.

Ray's the first to spot him coming forward, and his grin is huge. They almost collide when he runs over, but Mikey just lunges out of the way, and keeps playing, and they circle each other like a pair of puppies. Ray goes shoulder to shoulder, back to back with him, proper rockstar style except lameass 'proper' rockstars don't smile the way Ray Toro does.

Mikey grins back at him and keeps on playing. 

When they wind up for I'm Not Okay, there's always a roar, but this time the roar is fucking deafening, and Ray shoulder-bumps him awkwardly because he's, y'know, got both hands tied up with power chords.

Front of the stage, in the centre, right up under the lights, are Gerard and Frank, and fuck, Mikey's glad Frank already had him up against the wall, because it'd be fucking embarrassing to come on stage, and he would have, watching the way Frank is with Gerard right now, leaning on him, mouthing at his shoulder while the guitar in his hands chugs like a pick-up truck in neutral, sliding down Gerard's body til his face is in Gerard's crotch, up against -

Sweet fucking Jesus. Mikey goes red, he can feel his face _burn_.

Gerard puts his hand on Frank's head with a possessive, theatrical stretch of the fingers and rocks his hips up, up, up.

Frank is red-faced and breathless when he comes back up, as if Gerard really had been fucking his face, and Mikey isn't 100% but he's pretty fucking sure he's just watched his brother come on stage.

And if Mikey hadn't come in Frank's hand before, they would've been a double feature.

He shakes himself, comes back to reality, and realises Ray and Bob are watching him like hawks. 

He rolls his eyes, like he's laughing it off, just Frank and Gerard up to their usual shit, right? And the others relax. Ray rockets into his solo, the crowd are going fucking insane, and in the few moment he has to draw breath Gerard looks at Mikey and Mikey knows everything he wants, every sordid thought, every hot urge he got watching that little show, is written across his face for his brother to read.

He steps forward again, to break the deadlock and to hit the beat exactly when Gerard comes howling back in for the reprise.

And forward _again_ , almost to the edge of the stage. To see if he can, to look the audience right in the whites of their eyes.

In his earpiece he can hear someone yelling, but that's not unusual. Someone's usually yelling down the dead mic, which kinda defeats the purpose of the damn thing, but whatever. Mikey rears his head up to get his fringe out of his eyes and catches Gerard. He's waving at Mikey from pretty much the other side of the stage, motioning him to come over, belting vocals Mikey can't hear because his ears are roaring. Doesn't matter. It's pretty fucking clear Gerard's trying to say _get over here_.

Mikey shakes his head and smiles tightly and turns back to the crowd. He can do this, even if his gut is starting to knot again. Fuck. There's an endless fucking sea of people out there and as he watches he realises, from up here you can see how the motion in the pit works like waves, rippling and ricocheting, frantically churning people back and forth to break against the stage.

In his ear the dead mic is bellowing his name - 'Mikey, Mikey, _Mikey -_ '

Before Mikey's throat can close entirely there's a sudden vice-like grip around his waist and the wireless transmitter for his amp grinds into his hip as someone bodily hauls him back, literally kicking, from the edge of the stage and dumps him unceremoniously next to Frank, who looks like he's seen a fucking ghost even under the eyeliner.

Mikey looks around and Gerard is singing and staring at him furiously, hotly, and then there's a minor fucking explosion and Mikey realises with horror that he'd been standing over a pyro pot.

The crowd goes apeshit, Gerard bulls forward again to finish, and Frank hits an open chord that doesn't actually feature in the song just so he has a hand free to smack Mikey in the head with.

The last thing Mikey hears down his earpiece is 'I'm gonna fuckin' kill him,' and before he can do anything sensible, like run and hide, Gerard's untangling him from his own bass strap, handing the instrument over to Mikey's tech, and dragging him technically by the shoulder but very fucking nearly by the neck to the dressing room. 

He shoves Mikey inside and the door bangs shut behind him. 

'Are you fucking crazy?' Gerard demands, shoving into Mikey's space. 'You could have got fucking set on fire, you suicidal - did you not listen at the tech rehearsal? We ran the timings, Mikey, we rehearsed the timings and you knew the gear was there and what the hell, what in the _fucking hell_ were you thinking getting that close to the edge of the fucking stage when you knew we had pyrotechnics tonight?'

Mikey opens his mouth to explain but Gerard holds up a hand. 'No. I'm not fucking finished with you,' he snaps, and that … does things .... to Mikey that it really shouldn't when his brother is this furious with him. 'Because even if you forgot everything we did yesterday, that doesn't explain why you fucking didn't listen when I told you to get out of the way. Or why you ignored your earpiece!'

'Gee, I -'

But Gerard still won't let him talk. He snarls and steps up, glaring right into Mikey's eyes. 'For God's sake, Mikey. What would I - I can't even _think_ -' He grabs Mikey by the shoulders and physically shakes him, shakes him hard, and his face is wild and desperate-looking. 

Fuck, they're so close and Gerard's all mussed-up and sweating and he's holding Mikey so tight - and Mikey just kind of steps into the warmth of Gerard's body, helpless. 'It's not like it was deliberate,' he says. 'I just wanted to - prove I could do it.'

'Could do what?'

Mikey shakes his head, because how does he even say this? 'Perform?' he tries bitterly. 'Cross the fucking stage? I don't know, Gee, I just - I forgot the fucking thing was going to explode, and I was having a good night, okay. I was just … I was finally having a good night.'

He's looking up at Gerard, willing him to understand, fucking reaching for him, pulling closer, and Gerard's shaking just as much as he is. This is going to happen, it's really going to -

Gerard suddenly blinks, and his parted lips snap shut. 'Yeah, well,' he says, abruptly, letting Mikey go. 'You - next time, you just. Do what I fucking say, Mikey, okay?'

He's back out the door before Mikey can do a damn thing, blowing past Frank, Ray and Bob, who were definitely not listening at the door in any way, oh god no, they were definitely just coincidentally standing behind it. 

'What, did you think we were just gonna let him kill you?' Bob says, which breaks the silence. 'We were ready to -'

'Give you a proper burial afterwards,' says Frank. Off Ray's look, he shrugs. 'What? I'm just being honest. Gerard was on the warpath.'

'You scared him,' says Ray, rolling his eyes at Frank and actually stepping into the dressing room properly. Frank and Bob file after him. 'You scared all of us. Including the tech crew, by the way.'

Mikey drags his hands through his hair. 'Okay! Okay. I'm sorry, I fucked up, and I won't do it again, now will everyone just leave me the hell alone about it? I _was_ having a good time tonight.'

'Night's not over yet,' says Frank. 'And it's a hotel night, too.'

'Real beds,' says Ray.

'That don't fucking move,' says Bob.

'What about Gee?' Mikey asks. 'God knows where he's gone.'

'He'll be signing shit,' says Ray, shrugging. 'Out the stage door, I guess. C'mon, we can collect him on the way out. I have a date with a shitload of beer and fries.'

'Don't think for a second that we aren't all crashing your date, Toro,' says Bob. 'This is a sharing, caring band.' 

They bicker about fries versus nachos versus hot wings, pulling Mikey with them out of the dressing room. They find Gerard right where Ray said he would be, just outside in the chilly night air, surrounded by a crowd of kids brandishing paper and photos and bits of their anatomy for the attention of him and his Sharpie. 

They all get mobbed, and you can't just say no, so it takes them a while to get free and when they do they're all blinking from cellphone camera flashes and Mikey has black ink smeared on his fingertips and Frank has it across his cheek where he's wiped his face at some point. Ray loops his arm around Gerard's shoulders and steers him away, and they make their escape, back to the hotel, up to Ray and Frank and Bob's room, where the promised beer and fries apparently await, thanks to Ray's forethought (Ray calls it genius) and, probably more relevantly, the invention of the cellphone. 

Frank's hand slides its way into Mikey's back pocket at some stage on the walk and when they get into the elevator he squeezes Mikey's ass gently, but he pulls away when they leave the tiny box. 

Ray's grand plan came through - the room smells of fried, greasy deliciousness, and Mikey's gut begins grumbling, reminds him he hasn't eaten since before soundcheck. They all dive in, practically fight each other for the food, until at the end they're all licking their fingers and flopping on the floor and making undignified noises. 

That's when Ray cracks the first beer, and Mikey very carefully doesn't look at Gerard or Frank when he takes the one he's offered. He drinks it slow, rolls the bottle in his hands between sips. Listens to Gerard and Ray argue, watches Bob produce a bag of M&Ms from somewhere and throw them up and catch them in his mouth one by one. 

It's easy to rest his head on Gerard's shoulder when Gerard comes and sits next to him, a silent bro-type apology for earlier.

And when Ray offers him another beer, it's almost easy to say no, although he doesn't. He ends up having another two, which only gets him the tiniest skin of a buzz over the belly full of fries. But he wants the taste and he wants something to do with his hands to stop him doing anything else with them. 

When Gerard gets up for the bathroom, though, Frank slides into his space and leans over. He says 'I need your help with something,' in a tone of voice that's pretty fucking explicit about what kind of something, and no isn't even an option. 

***

Mikey can't deny he watched Frank kneel in front of Gerard on stage tonight and wondered what it felt like. From both ends. 

Frank takes hold of Mikey's hands once he's on his knees, and puts them on his head. 'You're gonna wanna hang on,' he says, smirking, but he's gentle when he looks down and nuzzles up against Mikey's crotch, undoes his belt and slips it through the loops on his jeans slowly and smugly.

Mikey's eyes slam shut and his head slams back against the wall of his room, and he prays to God this building is solid because the other three are all next door and he knows there's no point pretending they don't all know what the fuck is going on here but that doesn't mean they have to be subjected to it in full Dolby surround. 

He tries so hard not to push Frank, but it's hard not to want something to grind against, and it's hard not to want to just fucking fuck that pretty, smirking face when it's rubbing against your dick.

It's hard, but Mikey manages. Until there's a tiny whispering noise and he opens his eyes to see Gerard staring straight at him, the door to their room just clicking shut behind him, and the sense of deja vu combined with the shocking, gut-wrenching shame of being caught mid-fuck makes Mikey literally cry out, a reedy, thin approximation of something like the vowels in 'oh fuck', and he bucks his hips against Frank's mouth and tries to push him away, as if there's some way he can pretend this isn't -

'Shhh,' says Frank. He claws his blunt fingertips into Mikey's hipbones, bites down on the denim of his jeans to pull the buttonhole off the button. 'Wish I could have done this on stage,' he adds, and his teeth click on the metal when he latches onto Mikey's zipper pull.

His pursed lips run down the length of Mikey's cock as he unzips him, and Gerard's eyes are tracking that, all the way down.

Fight or flight is still flooding Mikey's veins, but he can't do either because Frank has him caught so fucking tight. These specific jeans were a tactical error tonight because they don't exactly leave a lot of room for underwear so Mikey mostly doesn't, didn't tonight, and Frank's lips are gonna give him a fucking aneurysm before he even actually gets inside Frank's mouth.

He can't help himself, he shifts his grip so that he can thumb at Frank's mouth, try to get him to open up, to stop teasing, and Gerard makes a tiny groaning noise.

Mikey's eyes snap up from the smudgy fan of Frank's eyelashes against his cheeks to Gerard's enormous, unfair eyes. Mikey stares breathlessly at his brother while Frank licks at the head of his dick and then slowly takes it in.

It's Gerard who says 'holy fucking shit, Frankie,' in a church-service whisper, but Mikey was thinking it too, in between short-outs of the wiring in his brain.

It all gets confusing after that - Frank's soft, wet mouth and the way he uses his teeth and the way he holds Mikey by the hips and rocks him so that what they're doing becomes fucking, pure and simple. Gerard's noises, god, his fast, shallow breathing and his comments, under his breath and raw and jerky like they're coming from somewhere uncensored and unfinished inside him.

'So fucking pretty,'

'Oh god, so good, so fucking good, both of you,'

'Frank, please, c'mon, _c'mon -_ '

Frank backs off Mikey til only the tip of his cock is still resting on Frank's tongue, and reaches up to jerk him off. Mikey whimpers and thrashes and comes embarrassingly fucking fast, body jacknifing, electric shock painful to the tips of his fingers and toes and the only thing holding him up is Frank, Frank whose face is a dripping mess now, who half turns to look at Gerard with his cheek pillowed on Mikey's hip and says hoarsely with his hand already on his straining dick, 'you wanna help me clean him up?'

Gerard takes a step forwards and Mikey's heart kicks so hard it hurts his chest but then Gerard says, 'fuck, what am I -' and he's gone, door slamming and Mikey whiplashed and Frank rutting against his leg like a desperate horny dog.

Mikey slides to his knees, folds into a tangle of limbs but he reaches for Frank, pulls him into his arms. 'Hey,' he says, soft and worn. 'Hey Frank, I gotcha,' and nudges Frank's hand aside so he can wrap his fingers around Frank's dick instead.

Frank buries his sticky face in Mikey's neck and pants. 'Fuck,' he says. 'Mikes, fuck, I know that was too far, but I couldn't - I had to -'

He's grimacing like he's in pain, humping Mikey's fist as much as Mikey's jerking him off, and Mikey nudges down to kiss him, nipping at the chapped lower lip which is all red and hot from being stretched too wide, and tastes of Mikey. 'Shut up,' Mikey murmurs into Frank's mouth, soft and sweet. 'Don't fucking care.'

'He wants you so fuckin' bad,' Frank groans. 'Tells me what to do with you sometimes, Mikey, figures he knows what you want, how to take care of you -'

'How about you?' Mikey asks, forcing himself to concentrate on his hands and not his exhausted twitching dick. 'He been taking care of you?'

'Don't need it,' Frank snorts, but he's shuddering against Mikey's body, all his weight on Mikey and his head lolling, the way he gets on stage when it all gets too much for him and he's just pouring the music through himself like his body's a conduit and nothing else.

'Bullshit,' Mikey says. 'Your turn, Frank.' And he remembers what Frank said that first time, how he liked Mikey's touch, and drags his hackled, sandpaper fingertips up Frank's dick, cups his balls in the palm of his left hand where his fretboard calluses are tucked in between the palmistry lines, and keeps it simple. Jerks Frank off rough and focused just like he is, like they both are, have always been with each other when Gerard isn't between them making everything baroque and beautiful.

Frank comes pretty much fucking silently in Mikey's hands, and they slump against the wall together in a sweaty, come-sticky heap.

***

Gerard doesn't come back to their room til four am, but hey, there's still a big part of Mikey that was expecting him not to come back at all, so this is an improvement. 

He stopped trying to call after it went direct to voicemail four times, but he kept his phone in his hand, willing it to go off. But it didn't ring and there was no text from Ray this time saying the others had Gerard in their room, so Mikey has been lying here half awake and half asleep and trying not to fucking panic.

What if Mikey and Frank have collectively done what touring and bullshit interviews and gross buses and constant fucking temptation couldn't, and sent Gerard crashing back down to the bottom of a bottle, or worse? 

Anyway, it's four am or some approximation of it, and there's the quiet beep-kerchunk noise of the door lock. Gerard lets himself in and pauses after the door's slipped shut, and Mikey sits up in bed and turns his bedside light on. 

'Hey,' he says, scrubbing at his eyes. 'Thank fuck, man, I was getting worried.' Understatement of the year.

'I had my phone,' says Gerard, pulling it out of his pocket. Then he squints at it. 'Which - is dead. Fuck. Sorry, dude. I just had to clear my head, that's all.'

He doesn't sound drunk, he doesn't look fucked up. Mikey lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding and Gerard looks him in the eye. 'I wasn't out getting wasted, if that's what you were worried about.'

'Sorry,' says Mikey, because what, is he gonna lie? Now? Gerard's not stupid, he knows what it looked like and he knows exactly what Mikey was afraid of. 

He knows exactly what Mikey would have done.

But Gerard doesn't say anything, just kinda nods. And then like that sorts them out or something, he shrugs out of his jacket, dumps it on the floor, trips over his unopened bag which got brought up here presumably while they were playing, wades through the drift of Mikey's stanky laundry (his pyjamas were right at the bottom of his bag but like fuck he was gonna sleep naked tonight, not knowing where Gerard was), and makes his way up the middle space between their two beds. 

Mikey realises he probably looks like a deer in the headlights right now, but he was pretty sure Gerard wasn't gonna come within ten feet of him maybe ever again and definitely not tonight. But he does, keeps walking up the gap, unbuckling his jeans, kicking his way out of them, pulling his shirt off over his head, and finally crashing into the bed opposite Mikey's. 

'That,' he says, muffled. 'Was a long fuckin' day.'

So they're not talking about it, then. Mikey turns off his light. 'Thanks, bro,' says Gerard, and that's the last of him for a while.

Ray wakes them both up by literally walking into their room (stupid spare keycard) holding a pot of coffee and waiting til they spot him before rapidly backing back out, or, as Mikey would put it, running away like a goddamn coward.

'Put some fucking pants on, Gerard,' Ray says through the door. 'We gotta be on the bus like, ten minutes ago.'

'I want coffee,' Gerard says like that's an argument, kicking the door and going back for his jeans. 'I will fucking kill you, Toro, there better be some left when I get out there.'

When they make it outside with their lumpy bags and Gerard's shirt half tucked in (why? Who fucking knows) and half not, and Mikey in a pair of jeans that are only barely fucking structurally sound (it should not be possible for a dude with no real thighs to speak of to rub thigh holes in his jeans but whatever, if Mikey flashes someone, he doesn't even care any more), the pot of coffee is empty. 

Gerard makes an unholy noise, which let's face it he's good at, and Ray rolls his eyes and hands them a pair of paper cups he'd been standing deliberately in front of. 'You're like a pair of fucking velociraptors about that shit,' he says, watching Gerard bury his face in the cup. 'One of these days I'm gonna get mauled, aren't I.'

Mikey's fingers twitch around his coffee. Frank, who's perched on the low wall the bus is parked next to, hood up and blowing on his fingers to keep them warm, looks at him. Mikey shrugs, smiles, pushes his glasses back up his face, and goes for the coffee because he and Gerard are very different people but there are some things they do have in common. 

Bob nudges Mikey over towards the bus door, even takes his bag off him. 'C'mon, guys, seriously, we gotta go.' He still hasn't slipped from roadie-style concern with sacredness of the timetable to the 'eh, fuck it, the show can't happen without us' attitude the rest of them have. Mikey lets himself be herded.

'Just don't get between them and caffeine and you'll be fine,' says Frank from behind Mikey. 'Or do we need to cover that at the next safety briefing too?'

Mikey scowls, but he supposes he's due endless fucking shit for that, probably for the rest of their joint careers. Not to mention all the goddamn photos he has no doubt are finding their way onto the internet right now. 

It's Gerard, though, that smacks Frank on the shoulder and glares at him.

'Too soon?' Frank asks innocently.

'Fuck you, Iero,' says Gerard. 

'Maybe if you're good,' Frank shoots back, whip-fast, and if he'd said it to literally anyone else in the world no-one would have cared, but he didn't. He said it to Gerard. And it's not like everyone else stops and stares, or anything, but it hangs there for a hot, awkward moment. 

The bus door bangs shut behind Bob, and the driver starts the engine, and they're off again, on the road to fuck knows where. 

***

Bob starts tapping about two hours into the journey. Tapping his feet, tapping his fingers, and Mikey's so used to tuning into what Bob's doing that he doesn't realise he's nodding and twitching along with it until Ray pushes the old Ashton at him and says, 'hey man, go ahead.'

Mikey picks it up, squinting at it. It's too light, the neck is too short, the frets are way too narrow, and the strings are thin, like fucking cheesewires, but hey, the top four sound right even if they're too high, so he flops his head back against the window and he and Bob do Helena and Hang Em High, Vampires, just for shits and giggles, Headfirst for Halos because Mikey actually has to concentrate for that one and Cemetery Drive because of Bob and his fixation on the fill, and Another One Bites The Dust because it's fun, and then Frank, whose finger is finally actually healed-healed, not just scabbed over but pink and whole again, wheedles the guitar off Mikey and hams his way through Baba O'Riley. 

Mikey would call him a pretentious fucking jerk but he joins in on the whole trembly _don't cry, don't raise your eye, it's only teeeeeenage wastelaaaaaaaand_ along with everyone else so it's not like he's got a leg to stand on. 

Lunch is burgers, and the only way they could've been hustled through it faster is if the bus would fit through a goddamn drive-through. Mikey can't help but notice that he gets caught in the middle of the group again as they go into the diner, that he gets put right in the corner of the booth as far away from strangers as possible but also as tightly wedged between his fellow musicians as possible. Part of him wants to protest that they're being ridiculous, he's not that fucking fragile, not that scared, but a bigger bit of him is grateful to be guarded like that, Bob on one side and Frank on the other, and Ray playing What A Nice Young Man for the middle aged waitress who clearly has no idea who they are.

After they've all eaten, the bus goes quiet for the afternoon haul - too busy digesting all the grease and onions and meat and bread. Even Frank managed to eat his weight in fries. They loll around and read or nap.

Mikey's sprawled out near Frank when Frank's pocket buzzes loudly. 'The fuck?' he says, snapped out of his doze, and elbows Mikey in the ribs as he fishes his phone out. 'Sorry, man.'

Mikey waves him off, rolls over onto his side on the floor. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Frank check his phone, frown, and then look up and around.

It's Gerard his eyes catch on, of course it is, but Gerard isn't looking up. Frank's mouth tightens and he looks back down at his phone, like he's trying to decide something.

Mikey feels his own phone go off after that.

 _your bunk tonite_ says the text. There isn't a question mark, but it's Frank, he punctuates at random anyway. Mikey can't help the shiver he gets, but Christ, they have got to stop doing this, just for the sake of showing Ray and Bob a little fucking courtesy if nothing else.

 _no_ he types back. _we gotta talk about that anyway_

_i dont mean for fucking i gotta show you somethin. Cmon mikey i promise not to seduce you._

Mikey turns over onto his stomach and pokes Frank til he looks over. 'Fine,' Mikey mouths at him. 

Frank looks down at his phone again, up at Mikey, and smiles such a sweet, innocent smile that Mikey immediately becomes suspicious.

Dinner is Chinese takeout because Frank wants to eat something that isn't potatoes and is prepared to offer violence if he doesn't get it. They eat on the bus, on the move. 

When Frank comes to Mikey's bunk, after the bus goes quiet, he's got soft PJ pants on, and a long sleeved shirt, and fucking socks, and Mikey sighs. Way to make a point, Frank. He goes to whisper something about subtlety, maybe, but Frank shoves his phone under Mikey's nose instead, and puts a finger over his lips.

 _you need to fuck him again tonight_ says the text that's open on the screen. _stay with him after, I'll cover for you in the morning_

The name at the top is GERARD

Mikey blinks and looks at Frank. Frank shows him the next message. 

_do it on your sides so you can hold him. He needs that_

Holy fucking shit. Frank told him Gerard told him to - but like this? This is fucking X-rated.

Frank pulls the phone back and starts typing. When he holds it out again the unsent message box says _wanna?_

Mikey takes the phone off him, deletes his words, and replaces them with _not on the fucking bus, ray n bob need 2 sleep u perv_

The phone buzzes in his hand while he's showing it to Frank, though. 

_just take care of him ok. sorry. fuck i'll shut up now_

Mikey raises his eyebrow at Frank. Frank reaches out and replies while Mikey's still got his fingers curled around the screen. _dnt worry i got him_

Mikey shakes his head. No, for fuck's sake. Frank sends the text and then drafts another.

_do it your self then_

And that makes Mikey's blood run cold for a second. Do it yourself, like he's something to be _done_ , a bit of gear maintenance to be checked off, a set of strings that just won't bed in right. 

The cursor blinks at Mikey accusingly. 

Delete delete delete. Type type type, wishing the buttons on Frank's phone weren't so fucking loud. _he been giving you orders the whole time?_

It isn't a dirty little thrill anymore, not if it's only because his machineheads are slipping, if Gee and Frank are the problem-solving techs in this scenario and Mikey's his temperamental Jag-bass: pretty, sure, but is it really worth the trouble?

Frank makes a face. Shrugs, then nods, then shakes his head, and what the hell is that supposed to mean? Mikey glares at him. He takes the phone and types out _suggstions_

_the fuck R you serious?_

In the bunk above Bob snorts and rolls over heavily. Mikey and Frank freeze. Frank recovers first, takes the phone from Mikey's hand and props himself up against the back wall of the bunk. He starts a new message.

He holds it out when he's done, but Mikey has to crawl over to read it.

_you didnt see your self. or him. Rather fuck you thn see you fuckn freaked out or drunk all the time. g agrees w me_

_am I a fucking chore now?_ Mikey snatches the phone back, types furiously. _how come bob n ray aren't in on it? A rota wld be more efficient wouldnt it?_

Frank rolls his eyes, glares at Mikey with real anger in his face now. _i know your not this fuckn stupid. you know i want you_

_bt apparently you need my brothers permission to do nething about it_

Frank moves like a snake and yanks Mikey into his lap, grabbing the phone and jamming his mouth up against Mikey's ear. 'I don't need him to tell me you need this,' he hisses. 'And I sure as shit don't need him to tell me how to fuck you.'

Mikey doesn't dare risk speaking in case he shouts. _but he does_

'And you get off on it. He gets off on knowing about us. And I get off on fucking both of you,' Frank says, hot and tight and mad as hell in Mikey's ear. 'Where's the fucking downside, Mikes?'

He runs his hand down Mikey's thigh. Mikey bites the inside of his cheek so hard he tastes blood to stop himself from reacting. _no_ he types

'Yeah yeah, I know.'

The phone buzzes in Mikey's hand, sudden and unexpected, and he drops the fucking thing somewhere between his own knees. Frank finds it in the mess of blankets before he does, and shoves it under his nose. 

_does he like it_

Almost before Mikey's finished reading and taking that on board, it buzzes again.

 _fuck i wish i could hear you_ it says.

Buzzes again.

_god i'm sorry Frankie. fuck. I'm really gonna stop now_

'He's out in the lounge,' Frank whispers into Mikey's ear. 'Doesn't want you to be uncomfortable, with him being too close, not after last night. And he knows Bob and Ray think this is weird. So he's trying to keep his distance.'

Mikey thinks about it, Gerard on his own, out there, but sending Frank to him like this, and it's so fucking Gerard, to cut himself off from something for Mikey's sake but not be able to walk away. Not Gerard. He has to stand there and watch Mikey have it, like the last puppy in the fucking shop looking through the window. He has to make sure Mikey gets it. 

He always has to leave a note, a footprint, a fucking -

Shit. He has to fucking _scratch Mikey's initial into Frank,_ that's what he was - like a fucking gift tag, a label -

As if he knows what Mikey's thinking, Frank nuzzles forward again. 'Pretty sure he was gonna finish with me so you could - y'know, til he figured out you like giving sloppy seconds.'

Mikey stares at Gerard's text, Frank breathing softly in his ear and his dick getting hard, harder, in his pyjamas. Thinks of Gerard all alone out there. And hits 'reply'.

 _or you cld tell me what to do next_ he says, not sure if he's imitating Frank's particular brand of shitty texting well or not. 

He's still mad. But.

Frank breathes in shakily. Mikey's expecting him to try and touch again, but he keeps his hands fisted in the sleeves of his shirt and down by his sides. They wait, in the dark, and the backlight on Frank's cellphone goes off, and Mikey wishes he'd put on a shirt because he can feel every breath Frank is taking underneath him, how soft his shirt is and, and how hard he is against the small of Mikey's back, but he isn't doing anything about it.

A part of Mikey that's bigger than he'd like to admit wants to take back the no. And the rest of him is guilty about liking just sitting like this so much. Feels so good. 

'He knows you better than you think,' Frank murmurs. 'That you like being held onto.'

Mikey's about to turn his head for the kiss he knows Frank would give him, but the phone goes off again, floods the bunk in dull blue light. 

_kiss him_ is all it says. 

Frank doesn't move. 

_how_ Mikey types back, already shaking. He bites his lip. Closes his eyes, breathes through his nose, tries to be steady. There's a touch on his wrist, and Frank's hands cradle his, Frank's thumb hits send. Mikey turns and buries his face in Frank's shoulder, until the next message comes through.

_do it soft. On his neck_

God. Mikey can almost fucking feel it. But Frank still doesn't move.

_god pleas edon't tell me he can see thsi_

Frank smirks. Mikey doesn't even have to see it, can feel it in the way his body moves. He knows Frank too well. 

'What are you gonna tell him?' Frank says, his voice not even a whisper. 

Mikey blinks and focuses on the screen again. _bt he likes it_ , he types out. One-handed, because his other hand is down his pants. 

_frank im gonna kill you_

There's a tiny, soft laugh behind Mikey as he curls his hand around his aching dick, the elastic of his waistband trapping his wrist. He tries to type a reply but now that he's touching himself he just can't - 

Frank takes the phone out of his nerveless hand. Mikey paws at him, but Frank just grabs his hand and puts it firmly on his thigh. 'I got it from here,' he says. There's the careful noise of phone buttons.

 _hes touching himself reading these_ is what Frank sent.

Mikey pulls the hand off his thigh and bites down on the ball of his thumb, squeezes himself til it fucking hurts to hold back the sudden wave of gut-deep dirty pleasure. He doesn't - doesn't wanna - Gerard should be here, he suddenly thinks, dropping his head back and arching helplessly against Frank's chest. Gerard should be here, he shouldn't have to be alone right now. 

If Mikey can have this, why can't Gerard?

 _ffcks_ reads the text Frank shows Mikey. Then before the phone backlight has time to die again, _give it to him frankie_

Yeah Frankie, Mikey thinks desperately, wishing Frank were fucking psychic. Give it to me. Just one fucking touch, one fingertip, one anything, would do it.

'You said no, remember?' Frank murmurs in his ear. Types _doesnt fuckin need me, you got thsi gerard_

Mikey's panting, biting bruises into his hand, hips working overtime and ass clenching and all of him sweating bullets against Frank's body. 

'Fuck,' says Frank faintly, and it takes Mikey a moment to focus on the phone screen, the light too bright, his eyes too blurry, his brain too far gone, but when he does -

_mikey. You ok?_

\- that's the fucking end of Mikey. He loses it all over his hands and in his pants and he's grinding back against Frank so hard it must fucking hurt but he can't stop, like he's watching himself from above and to the left, an uncontrollable jerking mess in the shitty light from the phone and with Frank curled around him like he's gonna physically break apart if Frank doesn't hold him together.

Frank's breathing hard. Mikey arches his back like a cat to stretch out the kinks and takes the phone. _I'm good. Sending Frank to you now. Thank him for me huh?_ he sends, puts the phone in Frank's hand, and pushes him out of the bed. 

Frank stumbles but catches himself against the bunk wall, and he's quiet as a mouse in his fucking socks, chasing Gerard. Mikey lets his breathing calm and listens.

The only thing he can hear is sleeping. No fake snoring, no suspicious lack of movement or too-quiet breathing. 

Nothing from down the three step passageway to the lounge, either.

Mikey barely even thinks about it before he fishes his glasses out of the bunk and slips out from the dark little cave he has in there.

There's just enough light coming through the bus windows to let him see Frank and Gerard, tangled up in each other on the furthest couch from the bunks, naked and panting into each other's mouths and Frank's tattoos showing up blue-black where his hands fall against Gerard's skin.

Mikey lurks just out of their eyeline and drinks the sight in.

Gerard is pressing Frank into the sofa cushions, kneeling between his thighs, and from this angle Mikey can see he's pushing his dick into Frank's body. They're face to face, Frank clinging to Gerard with one arm around his shoulders and the other reaching up to tangle his fingers in Gerard's hair. 

'Fuck, you feel good,' Frank's saying, groaning. 'Needed this - shit, he was so fucking - you should have seen him, he was so ready for it, I could have done anything to him and he woulda thanked me for it-'

'Shouldn't have shown him,' Gerard growls, shoving deeper into Frank. His shoulders are bunching powerfully as he rams himself forward, and Mikey's seen it on stage, how predatory Gerard can be in his sex appeal, how he can bring a whole room to their knees, and he's seen how Frank reacts to that, but this ...

Frank laughs and skates his inky fingers down Gerard's spine. 'He got off on it so hard, Gee. So fucking hard.'

'Did you do it? Did you hold him?' Gerard's hips snap and snap and snap and Mikey watches Frank's body shift under the onslaught, lean into it, take it so fucking well. 

Frank catches Mikey's eye over Gerard's shoulders, and his smile is fucking evil, his eyes flutter closed with every one of Gerard's thrusts. He reaches out one arm around Gerard's body, and beckons, one finger, like some golden age Hollywood vamp.

Mikey wants to go over there so bad. But he can't. There's a line, dammit. And as well as that the gap just … looks uncrossable, so much open space to be vulnerable in while the light flashes in through the windows like pyrotechnics every time the bus passes a shitty highway light.

It's like the beach in the Ghost of You video, it's like streets in strange towns and the parking lots the bus stops in, diner booths and packing case caves and hotel lobbies, it's like every fucking stage they've been on since Japan - it's void space, liminal, and Mikey doesn't know how to occupy it. It rips him open.

'Had him in my arms,' Frank says, hooking a thigh around Gerard's hip, cruelly grabbing him by the hair and forcibly meeting his eyes, and maybe Mikey doesn't know who's the aggressor, of the two of them. 'Could smell his fucking shampoo Gee, you know he uses the same shit you do, and he sweats the same as you. Held him and showed him your fucking texts.'

'Did you fuck him?' Gerard demands. He rears back til he's on his haunches and Frank sways up and into his lap, starts to ride him, and fuck, they're so fluid, so flexible for each other even when they're fighting.

'No,' says Frank, and it's deep in his chest, his head is sunk down and he's hanging on to Gerard the way he does when he's got a guitar in hand and a thousand screaming kids in front of him and Gerard's gravity well has sucked him in. It's triumphant, like Frank's keeping score.

Gerard swears viciously under his breath and his hips punch up sharp, make Frank sway with the force of him.

'Don't always do what you say,' Frank says. Mikey's half-hypnotised by the way his body moves, riding Gerard like a bull. 'He got himself off, fucking jacked it sitting in my lap reading your fucking messages, and I couldn't - fuck, Gerard, I couldn't even fucking kiss him, he told me no.' 

Gerard claws his fingernails into Frank's hips, and they are claws, sharp, Mikey can see where they dig in, because unlike the rest of them, Gerard doesn't have to keep his filed and chewed, Gerard doesn't have to worry about damaging things that aren't himself. His hands are soft and his nails are sharp, and he's using that now. He kisses Frank so hard Frank's knocked off balance by it, and Gerard upends him back onto the sofa with his knees crushed up against his chest, and kisses with teeth and fucks with violence, Frank bent up like a pretzel the way he folds flat on stage only it's Gerard holding him down now, not the weight of a Les Paul and a full house of chanting voices and seven pounds of eyeliner.

'Gonna come, Frankie,' Gerard says when Frank's been kissed into panting, hot-eyed temporary (clearly fucking temporary, this is _Frank_ ) submission, and Gerard's piston-fucking body is starting to lose its tempo. He's shaking, screwing himself into Frank like he never wants to leave. 

'Me too,' Frank croaks into the gap between his own knees, which he's holding. 

Mikey's lower body twitches, all of it, a tsunami of adrenaline. He takes a jerky step into the empty space from there to here. The blood rushes in his ears, he could swear he hears the ocean, and he comes back to himself in time to hear Gerard gasp, whine through his teeth, and say 'Mikey -' in a voice that breaks like a stained glass window as he comes.

Frank bucks wildly under him. 'Yeah Gee, fuck yeah, oh my god, oh my _god -_ ' and Mikey can't see it but fuck he knows how Frank sounds when he's getting off.

He takes another wobbling, pathetic, Bambi on ice step into the darkness between him and them, and Frank looks up, smiles.

Shakes Gerard, whose head is slumped on Frank's chest, and points.

When Gerard turns and meets Mikey's eyes, there's nothing left there between them but an exhausted, sandpapered kind of honesty. Gerard smiles a sketch of his usual smile, and holds out a hand.

Mikey steps over to him and kisses his knuckles, and sinks to the floor. As Gerard pulls out of Frank's body with a slick wet sound and both of them groaning like gunshot wounds, Mikey holds on.

***

When Mikey wakes up he's sprawled face down on a sofa, there's a blanket around him and a smell of coffee and donuts, and the bus is moving, which means they must have stopped and got breakfast already and then started driving again, all without waking him.

Ray is sitting on the floor next to Mikey's sofa, Ashton and all. He must hear Mikey wake, because the soft acoustic murmuring version of Layla he's playing stops and a cardboard cup of coffee is under Mikey's nose. Mikey takes it and tries to focus, realises he doesn't know where his glasses are, til they get handed up to him as well.

'Thanks,' Mikey says, sitting up. 'Time's it?' Frank's on the sofa opposite him, or at least, a lump of beanie and fingerless skeleton gloves is on the sofa opposite him, and it waves. Mikey looks for Gerard and finds him using Bob's shoulder to lean a sketch pad on, staring out the window and pen scratching on the paper hurriedly, like he's trying to catch something that's migratory. Bob rolls his eyes when he catches Mikey looking, but he's smiling.

Ray shakes his wrist to bring his watch back down from where it's slid. 'Ten forty. We figured we knew your order, so there wasn't any point waking you.' The next thing to get handed overarm up to Mikey is a donut, half wrapped in a napkin.

Mikey can't help the noise he makes. It's not his fault.

Ray goes back to Layla, singing softly under his breath to keep himself in time. Frank joins in, at least for the chorus. Mikey inhales the donut, clutching the blanket around his bare shoulders, and then gets up to find a shirt and a pair of jeans. 

The next time the bus stops and they have to pay attention to instructions, it turns out there's another fucking photoshoot today. Mikey, Bob and Ray groan in chorus. Frank barely moves from his sofa, and even Gerard, who usually likes to get his sticky hands all over photoshoots and take more of a directorial role than most photographers want him to, is less than enthusiastic. 

Fortunately their fanbase goes apeshit for sulky photos. Band aesthetic. It's a winner. 

But when they get herded off the bus there are costumes. Mikey finds himself stripped of basically everything he came in in, and instead there's -

'Okay does someone wanna explain to me what this Clockwork Orange homage is for, exactly?' says Frank, picking at his waistband where the crew have enforced shirt-tucking-in. Frank Iero is not a tucked in white shirt kind of a guy. Mikey gives it approximately two minutes before he sabotages it somehow.

'Hey man, at least you get sleeves,' says Mikey, crossing his arms in front of himself. He hasn't even got a proper shirt, just a vest, and it's fucking cold in this stupid haunted house looking set. 

Frank shakes his head. 'What a fucking waste. Wanna swap?' He goes for his belt immediately but a PA who's at least a foot taller than him in her (terrifying) heels lunges and pretty much wrestles him into submission. 

'No,' she says, repressively. 'You'll ruin the artistic vision.'

Gerard, who's got a full face of ridiculous stage makeup, and is therefore happy with the world again, nods. 'Too much colour, Frankie,' he says. 'C'mon, can't you see it?'

'The vision?' Frank says. 'Sure, Gee, I can see the vision. But I still say it's a wasted goddamn opportunity.'

He does roll his sleeves halfway up his forearms as soon as the PA is out of sight, though. The only thing that's surprising is that he stops at halfway. 

They've put dogtags on Mikey again. They were mostly tucked away on the set of Ghost, but here they're free to swing against his chest, tapping on his breastbone every time he moves. 

The letters and numbers they're stamped with are just for show, because these are props - it's not like they've got Mikey's name on them, his blood type, or any of the other info.

Gerard comes over while the lights are being set up, and pries the tags out of Mikey's fist so they swing against his chest again, then surreptitiously looks around for the hair and makeup girl and does something clandestine to Mikey's spiked up hair.

He smiles conspiratorially, pats the dogtags with a finger. Mikey swallows hard at the proximity, clenches his hand hard to stop the urge to reach out and put it on Gerard's hip - and then it's places, everyone, and the camera starts going off.

The phantom pressure from Gerard tapping the tags lingers on Mikey's skin. He wonders if they were Gerard's idea, from the brief but very gesture-filled conversation he'd had with the photographer before costumes got hold of them. It wouldn't be a surprise. 

What is with Gerard always trying to put words on things? People? Himself, mostly, but Mikey's been collateral damage to Gerard's Sharpie and his lyrics and his artistic vision too sometimes, and he isn't the only one.

The scratches on Frank's belly have faded by now, but Mikey will always know they were there. He's not sure what message Gerard would be trying to send by putting dogtags round his neck, but the point of them is to relay your medical info if you're wounded and your burial info if you're dead, right? Mikey isn't sure if he likes the implications. 

He stands where he's told and looks where he's told and zones out, him and Ray and Bob all go mindless automaton while Gerard gets melodramatic and Frank fidgets, and so it's a typical set of photos, when they get to see them - no facial expression worth describing from three fifths of the band, Gerard Way Certified Diva front and centre, and Frank not actually looking at the camera in a single shot.

Frank's wired today, even for him. He was slow to start this morning but as soon as they get out of the shoot he wants lunch, wants to get to rehearsal early, wants to check levels on everything twice until even Ray's starting to look frustrated and Bob has hurled two drumsticks (although he swears the first one was just him losing his grip from sweat), and the venue sound techs look like they're collectively planning a high profile homicide.

Mikey's putting his Mustang bass back in its flight case when Frank materialises at his side.

'So we're sposed to sleep on the bus tonight,' he says, without any other lead in. 'But we're not actually, like, leaving til 3am, cos the drivers both need extra sleep.'

'Thanks for the timetabling info,' says Mikey, shutting the case. 'What is up with you today, seriously?'

Frank ignores the question. 'There's a band I wanna hear playing a club near the venue tonight,' he says. 'Wanna come?'

Mikey squints at him. 'Dude, we're playing a show tonight,' he points out.

'Afterwards … c'mon Mikey, little clubs don't have the noise restrictions we do, they'll be playing way after midnight, we can totally make it in time for the last hour of the set.'

'You're insane,' Mikey informs him.

Frank grins. 'And you're totally gonna come to this show with me tonight.'

Mikey sighs, as theatrically as he knows how to. 'Yeah I guess I am,' he says, smiling down at his hands where Frank can't see him do it.

***

Ray and Bob take one look at Frank vibrating all over the place in the green room after the show and decide that a bar is a much better idea, but Frank grabs Gerard and Mikey almost by the scruffs of their necks and drags them downtown.

He gets them into the club easy, hoods up and hands in pockets, just three guys wanting to see a show, because why would they be anything else?

It's habit, the habit of more years than it legally should be, to head to the bar once they're in, but Frank's arm finds its way to Mikey's waist and before he knows what's happening they're in the crowd, listening to something that sounds like the Clash if the Clash had decided they needed a flute. Frank loops an arm around each of them and pulls them further into the crowd, until people close up around them.

Mikey takes a second to stop and just breathe it in for a moment. The song comes to an end and the motion from the moshpit up front slows, so the swaying back here peters out too, for a second, and then the band swing back into it and it all starts again.

Frank was right, they're pretty good.

'C'mon,' says Frank, pulling again. 'I wanna dance.'

Gerard is already forging ahead, one hand clamped around Frank's wrist just like Frank's is clamped around Mikey's - no man left behind. It doesn't take long before they achieve a level of burial in the crowd that Gerard apparently approves of, not quite on the edges of the pit but not out with the shoe-gazers either.

Mikey's not much of a dancer, and there isn't exactly a lot of space, but he nods and he jiggles and he joins in the frantic human pogo-ing in the chorus of the song, and they're all packed in here like a meat grinder so it takes him longer than it should, even with his eyes closed, to realise he's pressed hard against not just any warm, sweaty club body. That's Gerard, one hand braced against Mikey's shoulder, eyes wide and black like he's got cheap shitty Halloween contacts in, licking his lips and looking the kind of joyful you only get from a gig like this, from this end. 

Performing does shit for Gerard, anyone can see that, but being in a crowd has its own benefits.

One of them is Frank all pressed against Mikey's back, pulling Gerard in to kiss over Mikey's shoulder, filthy with tongue and guitar-string blackness under Frank's short nails on Gerard's cheek.

Frank's dick is against Mikey's ass and this is so public it's practically private again from the other side. No-one can see them and no-one cares and Mikey fucking missed that about shows. They used to be somewhere he could escape.

He's so close to their kiss he can feel the huff of breath as they move, see flashes of pink tongue as Frank tilts his head and moans and opens wider for Gee. Frank's rutting against Mikey's ass, Gerard's trying to keep their hips apart but the crowd is pushing on them and forcing them together.

Mikey's hard. And under his shirt his nipples are peaked, and his fingers are tingling and his mouth is dry - and Frank pulls back from Gerard's mouth but doesn't let him go, keeps his hand on Gerard's cheek.

'Now him,' he says, bellowing it over the noise and still Mikey has to concentrate to hear. Frank pushes him by the back of the head. 'I wanna watch.'

Gerard's breathing hard. He and Mikey stare at each other, deer in the headlights. Gerard licks his red, swollen lips. The crowd surges hard and between that and Frank's hands they can't keep their feet, they stumble together.

Mikey gasps like a fucking girl on a first date when Gerard's dick slots up in the crease of his hip, and suddenly he's got Gerard's tongue in his mouth and fingernails in the skin of his hips, over his waistband, under his shirt.

They're both grinding on him, the crowd pulsing them all together at the tempo of the song they're supposed to be listening to, and Mikey has no fucking blood in his brain whatsoever because he just wants to sink to his knees on this disgusting, sticky club floor and let them do what they want to him. The energy crackling between them is insane.

His knees are buckling. His mouth is watering and Gerard's kissing him so deep he can feel it in his gut and the root of his dick, and he just - 

Frank catches him around the waist before he can drop, hauls him back bodily and takes his weight and Gerard's got both hands on Mikey's face now, forcing him to stay still and be kissed, fucking Mikey's mouth with his tongue. The hard line of Frank's cock in his jeans is riding the crack of Mikey's ass, and Gerard is the closest of them to the outskirts of the real heavy moshing, so close that Mikey can't work out if Gerard's trying to fuck him through their clothes or if it's just the tidal motion of the crowd but his brother's dick is rammed hard against his own.

God. He's dizzy, oxygen-starved. He could take them both at once. They could fuck him here like this and he wouldn't care, no, the opposite of that, he wants it, he wants it like burning, crushed in and crowded and full of … of everything, Frank and Gerard and music, til there's no room for fear.

Pressure on the wound is everything.

There's a massive roar from the crowd and a surge that almost knocks Gerard off his feet. He catches himself by shoving his thigh finally between Mikey's, spread, begging-wide, and his teeth catch in Mikey's lower lip, and Frank's hand finally slides down the front of Mikey's jeans.

'We got you,' says Frank and Mikey doesn't know who he's saying it to, but it pushes him over. He comes sobbing, and they don't let up on him. Frank's hand moves to cup Gerard and Gerard's vice grip on Mikey's head lets up so he can pull Frank back in, but Mikey's still friction-welded between them and he never wants it to end.

He doesn't know when they come. He doesn't know if they do - they push pull crush kiss scratch bite him til he can't think of anything but how good his skin feels fitting him. They get kicked out of the club at 2am and have to run for their bus, holding hands and stumbling and they must have come because they're stained and pink-cheeked and hot-eyed.

Bob and Ray are sitting on the bus steps, and they just roll their eyes. In sync.

'Good show?' Ray asks, standing up.

'Fucking awesome,' says Frank, grinning. Bob herds them all up the steps into the bus. 

'Okay Charlie, good to go,' he tells the driver. 'All the sheep are in the pen, finally.'

The bus engine growls into life and the door bangs shut behind Bob. Mikey heads straight for his bunk.

When he wakes up it takes him a moment to realise that there're other noises around him - that the others are waking up too. That heavy creak from above is Bob rolling over and sitting up, that heartfelt groan from across and high up is Frank, whose bunk is the only one that ever gets any natural light, just a slash of it across his pillow if the bus is driving in the right direction at the right time of day. He never remembers to close his bunk's curtains, either. It's probably right in his eyes.

And those padding footsteps are Gerard on his way to the bathroom, but they're not followed by retching noises Mikey has to ignore, they're followed by Ray Toro's semi-naked ass charging down the bus after him growling 'you better not be doing your fucking hair in there, Gerard, I need a piss, motherfucker.'

Mikey stretches. Gerard is pretty much definitely doing his hair. Or he's about to create such a catastrophic stench they're gonna have to evacuate the bus, one or the other. Life on the road is so glamorous.

Speaking of, Bob lets one rip as he climbs down off his bunk and Mikey has to make a run for it or be asphyxiated. He scrambles into the first t-shirt he can haul out of his bag, and only realises when he's practically in the lounge that he's not wearing any actual pants, has to duck back for his jeans and is trying to work them up over his hips without breathing when Frank apparently finally wakes up and snarls 'oh my god, what the fuck _crawled up your ass and died_ , Bryar, seriously, you asshole, no more fucking burritos for you ever again, I'm banning them -' drops down from his bunk without bothering with the ladder and collars Mikey by the scruff of his neck as he goes past. 'Look at Mikey, for chrissake,' he says, shoving Mikey in Bob's laughing face. 'See how fucking traumatised he is by your ass?'

'Mikey always looks traumatised,' says Ray, freshly washed hands still damp as he pries Frank's fingers from the collar of Mikey's shirt. 'It's his thing, right Mikey?'

Mikey ducks out of the reach of all of them. 'My thing is breakfast,' he says, because clearly they need a cause that will unite them.

He orders his own coffee at the diner they stop at, and realises it's the first time he's spoken to a non-band-member in days. He tries out smiling at the girl taking his order, and it probably looks fucking awful, like a rictus of pain, because he's overthinking it, but she smiles back and doesn't look too horrified. And she brings him coffee, so hey, winning at communication.

Ray catches his eye across the table and his smile is 100% I'm-so-proud-of-you, which, awkward and embarrassing, but Mikey guesses he has been kind of highly strung lately and they're probably all looking forward to him being able to do normal human things like get up in the morning and order his own fucking breakfast on a regular basis again.

He orders pancakes. Frank watches him wistfully over his plate of toast. Vegan pancakes are still like hens' teeth in terms of rarity in some places. Mikey feels a bit shitty for it but on the other hand Bob orders basically a whole pig's worth of bacon and Gerard's omelette isn't much better.

He pulls the stack of pancakes to one side, out of the way, before pouring syrup all over the rest of the plate, way too much, and raising an eyebrow at Frank. Frank smiles dazzlingly at him and reaches across to dip the corner of his toast in the mess.

Mikey fights the lake of syrup long enough to eat most of the pancakes and then gives up. The others all end up dipping various bits of their breakfast in the remains of Mikey's, in the name of science.

Then it's back on the bus. They're driving through another night for a gig, and a hotel, tomorrow. 

It's sunny today. Mikey curls up on a sofa with his headphones on and watches the world flicker past the window, tapping his fingers along with what's in his ears. Gerard flops down next to him with a comic. 

It takes less than five minutes, one track, and Gerard's feet are on Mikey's lap. His non-page-turning hand finds Mikey's ankle.

Mikey lets his eyes close, lets the motion of the bus and Gerard's warm touch lull him.

He isn't sure if he dozes off or not, but he jerks to consciousness when Frank pulls his headphones off. 'Lunch,' he says. 'Ray says this place might actually have heard of salad.'

There is salad. Mikey steals bits of it when Frank isn't looking, but it's okay because Ray's eating everyone else's fries pretty indiscriminately. Mikey doesn't care. Every fucking meal seems to involve fries. He's gonna finish this tour 90% potato by volume if he's not careful.

There's a foot sliding up Mikey's ankle and he doesn't know whose it is. Frank is deep in conversation with Bob about pedals, and Gerard is staring out the diner window. 

They're both sitting opposite him - he's in the corner again with Ray and Bob jamming him in. It could be either of them, Frank or Gerard, scraping the toe of their shoe up Mikey's calf muscle and making him shiver, and that realisation makes him full-on shudder. Either of them. Or both. Like last night.

Beside him, Ray clearly notices him twitch, because he immediately signals for the check. 

The bus engine is already rumbling when they get to the parking lot, though, so maybe they were just trying to keep on schedule. Mikey waits til everyone else is in the throes of their post-lunch zone-out, and then raises an eyebrow at Frank, who doesn't eat meat or enough carbs to ever really do the whole food-coma thing.

Frank cocks his head at Mikey, licks his lips. Trap? Totally sprung.

Mikey gets up and goes to the bathroom and doesn't lock the door. Frank's easing himself in two minutes later, trying to finesse that squeaky hinge and actually not doing too bad a job.

'What's up, Mikes?'

He's slouching back against the door though and his eyes are wicked underneath his eyelashes and he knows what the fuck is up, he knows exactly.

'Was that you, in the diner?' Mikey asks.

Frank smirks. 'I have no idea what you're talking about.'

'Were you playing footsie with me, Frank?' There isn't room for Mikey to slouch too - he's ramrod straight up against the tiny vanity, but he can stare Frank down, give him the best 'you definitely wanna come home with me' Jedi mind trick he knows how to give.

'No,' says Frank. 'I'm shocked you'd think that of me.'

Which means it was Gerard, and Mikey can't think about that, he _can't_ , not and stay in any kind of control of himself, but then again maybe he can't anyway, because Frank's next words are, 'why, did you want me to be?' 

'I want you to -' Mikey starts, then gives up because what he wants he can't say out loud without sounding like the worst kind of tacky, gross porno. Instead. he slides down the vanity to his knees in front of Frank, because jesus christ if he doesn't shut up - 

He just needs to get off, that's all. Last night is an itch and he needs to scratch it.

But, 'Oh,' says Frank, reaching out softly and petting Mikey's hair. 'Yeah, Mikes. I can do that,' and something in Mikey fucking switches like it's been stomped on, straight from clean into overdrive.

He nuzzles forward til his face, which is burning pink and embarrassed, he knows it is, he can feel the heat in his skin, is buried in Frank's scratchy denim hip. These jeans need a fucking wash, they smell of dirty club and guitar strings. 'Wanted it so bad last night,' he confesses, while Frank can't see his face and he's safe.

'To be down there?'

'Yeah.'

Frank's voice is tiny and careful, like he's trying to figure out where the edges of what the fuck they're doing here are, just as much as Mikey is, when he says, 'you like being on your knees for me, Mikey?'

'Yeah.'

'And for Gee?'

Mikey squirms. Frank strokes him, blunt fingernails so good against his scalp, til he stops moving. 'You can tell me,' he says softly. 'Don't you trust me?'

Mikey shuts his eyes and nods, and wonders when the fuck the hot, dirty little bathroom hookup he planned turned into this. This isn't scratching an itch, this is nicking an artery. They haven't been in here two minutes and Frank's already got him gut-shot.

'If Gee was in here too,' Frank murmurs, 'would you still be on your knees?'

If Gerard was in here too they'd be mashed so tight together there wouldn't be room to move let alone be kneeling but the idea steals Mikey's breath. 'Yeah,' he mouths into Frank's jeans. 'Fuck, Frank -'

'Show me.' Frank's voice is ruined already, and his hands go to his fly. Mikey reaches up to help, pushes Frank out of the way to do it himself, because he wants his fucking traitor mouth too full to talk any more.

Frank touches his face softly, like he needs settling, and his thumb slides along Mikey's lower lip before pushing down, opening him up.

'I should have taken you out the back that night,' he says. 'Dragged you both out there. Made this happen.'

Mikey breathes in through his nose and fits his lips around Frank's cock before he starts saying stupid things like yes and please and you wouldn't have had to move, I would have done it right there in the pit.

'Fuck,' Frank breathes the word like it's a prayer, and Mikey's jitters settle.

He crowds close, takes as much of Frank in as he can without choking, and Frank lets him do it, doesn't push but doesn't pull, gives Mikey control. Strokes his hair, and his pulse points, and his cheeks.

'There you go,' he says, when Mikey stops, full and wet and flirting with the edge of stopping his own breath. 'Shit, Mikes, you're so fucking good. Wanna show you off to Gee like this, he'll go nuts.'

Mikey clutches Frank hard by the hips. His dick slips that tiny bit further into Mikey's throat, enough to choke. 

'Easy,' Frank murmurs, and now he does pull, slides Mikey back off him and wraps his thumb and first two fingers around his cock to make a buffer. 'Don't fucking hurt yourself, idiot.' But he starts to thrust after that, and maybe Mikey can't lose himself in the sloppy bruising feel of taking it deep any more but the dizzying way Frank fucks his face does the same thing.

'Don't touch yourself,' Frank says when Mikey's hand creeps across his own thigh. 'Need you to save that, Mikey, need you to be good for me, do what I tell you, can you?' His pitch is winding up, his volume is dropping, his tempo is rough - he's going to come, Mikey can hear it. 'Gonna come in your mouth, want you to swallow it for me, okay?'

His hands are both on Mikey's face now, training wheels gone and he's not forcing Mikey to take more than he can manage but he is forcing Mikey to take what he's given.

'Look at me,' Frank says, and Mikey realises he's got his eyes closed. He forces them open and looks up, and Frank's hips stutter-snap hard, like he's shocked, and suddenly Mikey's mouth is full, slick, wet and heavy, cloying, suffocating with the taste-smell of Frank's come. He swallows what he can, breathlessly, around Frank's still pulsing dick, until Frank wrenches him off and then he has to lick his lips, wipe his mouth with shaking fingers to get all of what spilled out. He strains back to try and get to what he left behind on Frank's skin.

He wants to touch himself so badly he's panting, rocking on his knees as if that will relieve the pressure. Frank nudges him with a foot. 'No,' he says softly in a rough voice. 'C'mon, we've been gone ages. You go first.'

Mikey reaches back, flushes the toilet, washes his hands, because plausible deniability and because he really does need to wash his hands after that but also because the actions delay him leaving. His cock is heavy in his jeans and he has to take a deep breath to force himself to reach for the door handle.

'Mikey,' says Frank quietly before he can turn it. 'If that's - the Gee thing - if that's not actually something you want, if it's just fantasy - you better tell me now.'

There's something hard in his voice. Mikey leans his forehead against the back of the toilet door, and takes another deep breath, and leaves, rather than lie. 

Out in the lounge the other three all have their headphones in. Ray actually does look like he's asleep, Bob is reading, and Gerard's playing the old guitar along to something Mikey can't quite pick, or maybe just making chord shapes aimlessly. He looks up when Mikey sits down next to him, and then leans into his side. There's an outside chance he's playing Good Riddance, Mikey thinks, listening a little harder, but who even knows.

Bob shoots Mikey a look that says that he and Frank didn't quite get away with it unnoticed, but he doesn't look upset, or grossed out. It's almost, but not quite, the I'm-not-mad-I'm-just-disappointed look, although maybe it's more like the your-father-and-I-just-want-to-know-you're-being-safe look. 

Mikey's mouth tastes of Frank's fucking come. They are not being safe. But Mikey feels safer now than he has in a long time. 

Mikey realises he can hear the toilet flushing again, and then the door banging open. Frank reemerges from the back of the bus carrying a new book and with a beanie on he wasn't wearing before, although he puts the book down in Gerard's lap and takes the guitar off him in trade. 

Gerard pulls out his headphones. 'What?'

'This is that Mieville book I told you about,' Frank says. 'And you were butchering that song so I'm revoking your privileges.'

Gerard rolls his eyes. 'Asshole.'

'Read the fucking book, you'll like it.'

Frank lies down on the floor and does actually start playing Good Riddance. Gerard relaxes into Mikey again, and Mikey kinda sags under his weight until they're both half-melted into the sofa. The sunlight coming through the bus windows is golden and late-afternoon-y, and Gerard's warm and heavy along his body. 

Mikey's erection wanes, slowly, but the low thrum of being kinda ready to go doesn't go away, not with Frank right there smiling at him from under his beanie and Gerard so close he can feel his lungs lift and fill when he breathes. 

Frank switches into A minor, D minor, into Jetset Life, and keeps his eyes fixed on Mikey the whole time as Gerard starts murmuring the words like he doesn't even know he's doing it, _and for the last night I lie, could I lie with you -_

Fuck. 

They're going to be fucking electric tomorrow night.

***

The time in between soundcheck and the end of the support act always feels strobe-light-y - you can't settle to anything, you don't have time, so you stay still and around you all kinds of shit happens that you're not involved in, flashing in front of your eyes as techs and stage hands and roadies do necessary things on the move and cross your path as they do it. 

It's like flipping between channels on TV, or being on a subway and seeing the tiny bits of people's interactions - a gesture here or a shouted word there - every time you pass a station. 

Mikey's in the green room, mostly avoiding his tech, when the door bangs open and Gerard pushes Frank through mid-sentence.

'- not again. That was too fucking close, Frank, and we can't -'

Frank stops moving when he sees Mikey sitting in the corner of the room, and Gerard collides with him.

'Hey, guys,' says Mikey. He gets up. They're obviously having a conversation they don't want him to hear. 'See you on stage.'

'Mikey -'

As the door shuts behind him it doesn't latch properly, and he catches '- not fucking fair on him -' in Frank's voice. 

***

This is gonna sound fucking dumb, but Mikey kind of doesn't realise how wide he stands on stage til he sees the pictures afterwards, and he's not sure why he does it, either. It just feels natural, solid, balanced. And sometimes on stage he can use all the solid and balanced he can get, squaring his shoulders and daring shit to hit him instead of hiding himself away. Even if he has to force himself.

Like, you're a fucking musician, Mikey, you signed up for this. Stand still and take it.

Tonight he's feeling wild, though, bad-decision brave, between the gut-clenching fight-flight adrenaline surge of forcing himself onto the stage, and the humming, thrumming way Frank left him, all worked up and no place to go except out here into the screaming void. 

So he stands his ground, widens his stance, and dares the fucking fear to come for him if it's gonna. 

Except it doesn't. They open on Helena and don't slow down, and Bob sounds like he's trying to break the world into pieces he hits the skins so hard, his tech is gonna kill him, he loses three sticks in the first half and thank fuck there are spares stacked down the ribs of his kickdrum, and also thank fuck Mikey's good at ducking when things whistle past his ears. 

Frank's an ominous shadow in a black hoodie stage right and Ray's a powerhouse stage left, and Mikey holds his position between them. Gerard stomps all over the space in front of all three of them. He goes full-on Freddie Mercury for a while with Ray like he's gonna start making out with the pickups of Ray's fucking Les Paul, then drags Frank around by the hair for most of Hang 'Em High, at least until Frank lets go of his guitar and starts rubbing himself on Gerard like a cat in heat. _Then_ Gerard actually starts paying attention to the crowd again, like he just couldn't bear that Frank had something to do - like play fucking guitar - that wasn't him.

Ghost of You, because it starts slow, is buried somewhere in the middle of the second half, where they usually need a breather for a couple of minutes. And they start out lined up along stage like they are in the video, and Mikey's pulse has time to actually level out, until Gerard's taking that deep deep breath and suddenly it's _at the end of the world and the last thing I see_ and he's got his brother in that wide, wide space between his thighs, singing at him, _screaming_ at him about never coming home like he really fucking fears it. 

The show spits them out chewed but whole back to their hotel, which they've been checked into but haven't seen yet - they turn up sweaty and unwashed and Ray's first act is to hunt down some fucking beer like he's been wandering in a desert for forty days and nights. Mikey gets half of a cold one down his throat before he even realises what he's doing, but it doesn't - it just feels like a beverage. He puts it down on a bedside cabinet, experimentally, and doesn't feel compelled to pick it back up immediately. 

The five of them flop around between the beds and seats and across the floor, sprawling. Mikey's still stage-hot, feels like the air above his skin is on the point of boiling, and he reaches out for the beer again just to press it against his forehead in the hopes of cooling down. 

From the floor, where he's lying on his back like a cockroach, Frank flaps his hands in Mikey's direction to try and fan him. He's still in his hoodie, because apparently no-one ever explained to him about how overheating actually works. Or maybe he's fused to the thing, who even knows?

Mikey nudges him with his foot. 'Dude, you're gonna pass out. Take that fucking thing off.'

'Fuck off, Mikey Way.' Frank smacks at him, but he does unzip and roll himself out of the hoodie, doing his best not to actually have to get up. He bundles it up under his head. 'Are you happy now?'

Mikey pokes his tongue out. Frank reaches up to grab the beer bottle that's now resting on Mikey's knee. They flail at each other until Bob reaches over, takes the beer and drains it, then flicks Mikey's ear and pokes Frank in the thigh with his toes. 'Children,' he says repressively. 

Mikey and Frank share a look, and then attack. They're valiant in war, but Frank's fucking tiny and Mikey has the muscle definition of a string bean, so it doesn't take long before Bob has Mikey in a headlock and Frank held at arm's length. 

'Uncle?' he says. 

'Never,' Frank says fiercely. Mikey just squeaks breathlessly. 

'Let go of my brother, Bryar,' says Gerard threateningly from someone's bed, probably Frank's given the state of it. He isn't even looking over, but Bob, laughing, drops the pair of them anyway and goes over to Ray to grab another beer. 

Frank stretches out on whoever's bed this one is, next to Mikey where he's folded up against the headboard with his arms around his knees. 'Was thinking,' he murmurs while Ray fishes around looking for the bottle opener and Bob claims he knows how to pop the top off one beer using another. 'About making something happen tonight.'

Mikey looks over at Gerard, who's drinking Pepsi, throwing the bottlecap up and catching it, staring at the ceiling. 

'If we sneak off again they're gonna fucking take one of us to the vet to get fixed,' he says. 'Probably you.'

Frank curls his legs in a little tighter. 'So we don't sneak off.'

'Whatever the fuck you have planned, we're not doing it in here,' Mikey whispers. Gerard looks over at that, like terrier on a scent. He rolls onto his side to look at Mikey directly, a questioning look on his face. 

Mikey looks away, down at Frank. 'When you say, something,' he asks. Frank peers up at him, and he nods in Gerard's direction. Gerard's questioning face gets a lot more pointed, and when Mikey still won't meet his eyes he switches to Frank.

'Go to bed, Mikes,' Frank says softly. 'I got this.'

Mikey rolls off the mattress stiffly and stalks over to Bob and Ray. He sticks out his hand. 'One for the road?' he asks. 'I need to sleep, I'm fucking dead on my feet here.'

Bob eyeballs him, but whatever he sees, he shrugs. Ray, who's found the bottle opener, pops the top off a beer and hands it to him. 'Night, man,' he says. 'Sounded good tonight.' He clinks his half-drunk bottle against Mikey's full one.

'You too,' says Mikey. 'Like fucking always.'

'Sleep well,' is Bob's contribution, along with another bottle clink and a soft smile that Mikey probably doesn't deserve if Frank's plans are anything like what he thinks they are. 

He slips out with his beer and his keycard, and heads for the room he's sharing with Gerard. 

***

Mikey's flipped through every book he and Gerard collectively brought on tour. He raided Gerard's bag for that, which he'd feel worse about if Gerard hadn't been wearing his shirts (definitely) and his underwear (Mikey has suspicions) since like, the second show of this tour. But nothing's holding his attention. 

He fidgets. He drank the beer within ten minutes and went and got a glass of water just to have something to occupy his hands. Toys with questions like, is he supposed to be doing something? Getting … getting ready somehow? Half an hour comes and goes with no movement, and Mikey figures maybe it isn't happening, whatever Frank had in mind, he hasn't been able to pull it off.

It's probably a good thing. Mikey doesn't actually want everyone he knows thinking he's an insatiable sex maniac.

He pulls off his shirt and his jeans and underwear, and is fishing around in the drift of clothes that used to be the contents of his duffle bag for his PJ pants, when the door beep-kerchunks behind him. He whirls around clutching a pair of fucking flannelette pants to his chin, like a moron, which does nothing to hide his junk.

'That's a good look on you, Mikes,' says Frank. He's got something big coiled or wadded up in one hand, Mikey can't make sense of the shape of it, and he's alone.

The questions Mikey has must be written all over his face because Frank waves his bundle of mystery and says, 'don't worry, this is just Phase One of the plan.'

Mikey immediately wants to know what Phase Two is, but Frank doesn't stop to explain, just steps in close and gently pulls the PJs out of Mikey's hand.

'You know that whatever goes down tonight, it should be because you want it, right?' Frank says softly. 'If you don't want it, you gotta promise to tell me. Okay? Any time you wanna stop, you don't like something, you tell me.'

He brushes Mikey's fringe out of his eyes, looking deadly serious for once in his life.

'I promise,' says Mikey, and Frank smiles and leans forward and kisses him. 

Mikey reaches out to grab Frank by the shoulders and pull him in tight, but before he can get them properly fit together, Frank's holding him by the wrists. He's dropped whatever it was he brought in onto the floor so that he can close two sets of inky fingers around the long thin bones of Mikey's forearms. Mikey goes to look down but Frank kisses him again, forcing his head up, and walks him backwards to the bed.

Mikey realises the people who do their tour logistics made a tactical error with this hotel when Frank pushes him flat to the mattress, butt naked, and tells him to hang on to the bedframe, which is honest to god like, lacy wrought-iron looking stuff (probably just painted up aluminium, but still).

'Stay,' Frank tells Mikey sternly, like he's a puppy, and Mikey can't help doing what he's told.

'What are you gonna do?' Mikey asks. He leans up to prop himself on his elbows so he can watch Frank collect up the things he dropped.

They're guitar straps, Mikey realises when Frank brings them to the bed.

'Tie you up,' says Frank. 'If that's cool with you.'

'Kinky,' says Mikey with a suddenly very dry mouth. 'Do you think I'm gonna run away or something?'

Frank straddles his thighs and reaches again for a wrist, the right hand one. 'Maybe,' he says. 'When I bring your brother in here. I just don't want the two of you to … I dunno, man.' He looks Mikey in the eye. 'I guess I do think you're gonna run away. But also -' and his face turns wicked for a moment, '- I know what Gee likes.'

He reaches for a guitar strap while Mikey fucking assimilates that piece of information.

'Is that okay?' Frank asks, though, before he actually starts doing anything.

'Yeah,' Mikey says, his throat kinda sandpapery. 'Okay.'

Frank kisses him softly, and starts looping the strap around his wrist. It's scratchy but familiar, and he stops every so often to just run his fingers over Mikey's stretched out arms, or kiss him somewhere weird and ticklish and unexpected, like the inside of his elbow.

It's soothing and lulling and Mikey starts to feel pampered, but when Mikey's trussed up apparently to Frank's satisfaction, Frank gets off the bed.

Mikey tries to work out how hard it would be to chew through the fucking straps and decides it wouldn't be worth his dentist _and_ Frank (and ... probably Ray, too, looking at the right-hand strap, wow Frank, way to overstep boundaries) killing him. He twists, though. He doesn't want Frank to leave him here like this. He doesn't want to be alone out here without any cover. He yanks at his wrists, trying to fight down a panic reaction that he knows is his body overriding his brain.

'Quit your bitching,' says Frank, even though Mikey hasn't said a word since that 'okay'. He lays a hand over the fabric holding Mikey down. 'Trust me. You trust me, right Mikes?'

Frank has never been good at reassurances. Just demands.

'I guess,' says Mikey, trying to tough it out. 'Trust you more if I had some fucking pants on.'

Frank grins. ''They'll just get in the way,' he says. 'Smart of you to get rid of them. Now stay still, I'm gonna go get Gee.'

'He isn't gonna come if you tell him what's in here,' Mikey points out. 'And he'll kick your ass if you lie.'

'I'm not gonna need to lie. He'll come. Now shut up and stop fucking wiggling.' Frank gives Mikey one last scratchy pat to the head before he gets off the bed. 'I'll be right back.'

The door closes behind him, and Mikey tries to get his heart rate to wind down. He pulls at his wrists, and realises that even though the straps are wide and thick and unwieldy, Frank has managed to use the ... whatever you call how they lengthen and shorten, the loop-tightening thing, to close around Mikey's wrists and then just tied a lazy fucking overhand at the top to stop him working them loose. Won't ruin the straps, but takes two hands to undo, and Mikey has zero. Zero hands, zero pants, nothing but two guitar straps and his own fringe to hide behind.

And two doors down Frank fucking Iero is sweettalking his brother into coming in here.

This isn't the first time Mikey's let someone tie him up, but it's never felt _serious_ like this before. It's always just been for a good time. It's always been with someone he was never gonna see again, someone it was safe to get a little bit wild with because who were they gonna tell?

No-one's ever left him alone like this before, and he hates it, hates the feeling of being on one side of a divide. His guts start to churn. There's a laugh in the hallway, unmistakably Frank, and a low sound that could be Gerard. He's not laughing.

Mikey finds himself trying to bring his knees in, curl his lower body to the side to hide himself - he suddenly, desperately doesn't want Gerard to see him vulnerable like this, opened up to his core - and then the door lock softly beeps and Mikey lifts his head as much as he can to see Frank coming through the door, backwards, pulling Gerard by one wrist.

Mikey can already feel the blush burning up his chest to his face when he realises Gerard's blindfolded.

'Mikey?' is Gerard's first question, he's casting around like he can smell Mikey out like a bloodhound or something.

'I'm here, Gee,' Mikey says, but his voice is croaky and Gerard stiffens.  
'You okay?' he asks, and now his body language is 100% glare and it's directed at Frank, who still hasn't let go of him. 'What the fuck kind of sex dungeon are you running in here, Frankie?'

'Relax, I just tied him down for you,' Frank says, like that's somehow reassuring. 'I didn't even touch him, Gee. I told you. He's waiting for you.'

'Christ,' Gerard says faintly.

'I'm -' Mikey coughs, 'I'm fine.'

'Frank, look,' Gerard starts. 'I know I ... said some shit, and I know this tour has been kinda ... things have been intense, lately, between the three of us, but you know we can't actually ... do what you're. We _can't,_ Frankie.'

That's Mikey's big brother, who's done everything at least once, including the shit he warned Mikey off, whose motto has always been, basically, fuck it, let's go - that's Gerard fucking Way, saying he can't. We can't. It hits Mikey like a brick then - Gerard's looking out for him. Has _been_ looking out for him all this time.

Gerard would never hurt him. Gerard would never let anyone else hurt him. And Gerard's been trying, in his weird, screwed-up way, to stop him hurting himself the same way Gerard did, going down the road that led them to the shitstorm post-Japan. 

'We can't,' Gerard says one more time, into Frank's shoulder like he can't bear to look any more even if he's blindfolded and can't see a damn thing.

'Yeah, you can,' Frank says. He pulls Gerard's hands down to his fly, and Gerard starts unzipping Frank like it's autopilot. Frank has him with one hand on the nape of his neck, starts stepping back towards the bed, towards Mikey, with Gerard's head bowed and his hands busy. They make it to the edge of the mattress and Frank sits, kicks off his jeans, leans back.

'Frank,' Mikey starts.

'Shut up,' says Frank, not meanly, just low and quiet, like he's trying to concentrate. 'Gerard, c'mere.' He pulls Gerard til he's kneeling on the mattress.

'Don't -' Gerard says when Frank reaches for his shirt, though. His voice is tight, bitten off. 'Frank, please, I -'

Leaning up to watch them is starting to hurt Mikey's neck, his shoulders where Frank spreadeagled him between the bedposts, but he couldn't look away if his life depended on it.

Frank takes Gerard's hand from where it's pawing weakly at his shoulder, and curls it around where he's hard in his briefs. 'See, no big deal,' he says quietly still. 'Done this a hundred times, Gee, it's easy.'

'Yeah, with you,' Gerard says, licking his lips. He's stroking Frank as he says it, though. And Mikey can see he's hard in his jeans.

Frank's free hand finds Mikey's knee. A warning. And thank fuck, because the next thing he does is peel Gerard's fingers from around his own dick and wrap them around Mikey's in one blinding-fast move, and holds them there 'til Gerard stops fighting him, and if he hadn't given Mikey that heads-up, Mikey's not sure he wouldn't have kicked someone in the head out of shock.

'Oh, god,' says Gerard in a broken little tone Mikey's never ever heard from him in all of their recording sessions. 'Frank -'

'Mikey,' Frank corrects. 'Doesn't he feel good, Gee?'

Gerard has his lower lip bitten so hard between his teeth it's going white. He shakes his head and something goes cold inside Mikey.

'Let go of him,' he growls at Frank, kicking the bits of guitarist he can reach, which is mostly ankles and calves. 'He doesn't want to - I fucking told you, Frank, I told you not to push this -'

Frank rolls his eyes at Mikey. 'He wants to,' he says. 'You don't remember him fucking grinding off on you in that pit the other night?'

'That was -' Mikey doesn't have a good explanation for that, it's true. 

'You don't remember those text messages?'

'Frank -' How does Mikey explain about fantasy and reality to someone like Frank, who lives and dies in the moment and doesn't ever seem to want to give a fuck about what happens _next?_ How does he explain that sometimes you just don't get to have what you want no matter how hard you want it?

Gerard's hand is curled around Mikey's dick and his head is bowed and he's shaking, he's fucking shaking. Mikey's terrified he's going to lose his brother and doesn't know how to stop this moment from fucking haemorrhaging out all over the bed.

'Gee, you're freaking your brother out,' Frank says softly. 'Mikes thinks I'm making you molest him. Wanna set him straight, huh? Wanna tell him what you told me the other night, how you wish you could just take care of him, how you see how tight-wound he gets and all you can think about is getting him to let go? How you show off for him cos you know he watches, you know he likes to watch us together and then fuck me after, and you figure it's better than nothing? At least he gets off on it, at least that helps him relax? You wanna tell him, Gee, or do you want me to? Want me to fucking quote you, man? How you wanna take him to pieces because you know he needs it?'

Gerard's shaking his head, no, no, no, but he hasn't taken his hand off Mikey's cock and both of Frank's are held up in the air now, he's looking at Mikey with the hey-man-I-didn't-do-anything face. 'He does want this, Mikey, he wants it just as fucking hard as you do. So I'm just providing you two with a little bit of plausible deniability.'

He crawls up the bed to lie in the wide space between Mikey's torso and his stretched-out arm. 'You can't run away,' he says. 'And Gee -'

'Isn't gonna fucking leave you here with this pervert,' says Gerard, reaching up and pulling off the blindfold. He takes a deep breath. 'You've made your point, Frankie. Jesus.'

'So you'll stay?' Frank says. 

Gerard looks at Mikey. Mikey meets his eyes, mouth dry. It's too late to lie. That's why he's not the one Frank figured needed blindfolding. Mikey wants this, and Gerard has to know it by now. 

'Mikey?'

'Gee,' Mikey croaks. Frank rolls closer to him, puts a hand under his skull to help him hold himself up. 'I just - I miss you,' he says. It's all he's got any more, it's all the logic, all the explanation he has. This whole tour, even when they've been skin to skin on stage or at that stupid fucking show, it's felt like there's a gap between him and Gerard, yawning space, the width of a corridor or a stage or a cold, salt-washed beach, and no matter how hard Gerard's been screaming, Mikey hasn't been able to get to him.

'I'm right here,' Gerard says, scrambling up the bed, burying his hands in the bird's nest of Mikey's hair, planting his knees either side of Mikey's hips. 'I'm right here, Mikey, I'm not going anywhere.'

Mikey stares up at him, breathless with proximity, trying to get his elbows under him to push up and meet Gerard halfway, but he can't, he's stretched out too tight.

It seems like this moment stretches on into eternity too, before Frank's reaching up with his other hand and pulling Gerard's head down. 'Fucking kiss him before he breaks my fucking guitar strap, idiot,' he growls.

Gerard's mouth is like it was the first time, half asleep on the bus - soft and warm, tentative, gentle. Like he's being careful, like he thinks Mikey needs that. Mikey … everyone's been treating him like he's the walking wounded for so long, and he wants to be able to stand up and say he doesn't need that. He doesn't need them to be crutches for him or bandage him up. But a guilty part of him craves it, especially from Gerard.

'Gee,' he mumbles, sloppy against his brother's skin when they try to break for air but can't pull apart. 'Gee, I -'

'Yeah?' Gerard whispers. His eyes are hooded and dark with more than just yesterday's eyeliner. Mikey's skin rolls everywhere Gerard's touching him.

'Don't stop,' he whispers, closing his eyes, the only way to hide he has left.

Gerard's fingers trace Mikey's face. 'Frank,' he says. 'Need you to hold him for me,'

'I got you,' says Frank, still in what would be the crook of Mikey's arm if it weren't pulled the way it is. He curls close to Mikey's body. 'Got you both,' he says. Mikey peeks - Frank is touching Gerard's shoulder, stroking it. 'C'mon Gee, don't fucking tease him.' He leads Gerard's hand down, drags his fingers over Mikey's skin. Mikey shivers.

Then he pulls Gerard's hand down further and moulds his palm to Mikey's hip, his fingers curving around. His voice drops conspiratorially low. 'Gee? You want Mikey's ass?'

Gerard's eyes slam shut and he quakes over Mikey like he's holding something back against a dam breaking. Mikey stops breathing, thinking about it, Frank's nasty little phrase gets him so fucking _hot_ and Frank knows that - 

'No,' says Gerard. 'Frank, fuck. No. Not like this -'

'Hate to break it to you buddy, but he's no goddamn virgin,' says Frank, kissing Mikey's neck, biting his earlobe softly. 'But hey, that's okay. Right, Mikes? You want him? Want him to ride you? Feel him all hot around you, on top of you?' He knows, he fucking knows what being pinned does to Mikey. Mikey whines in his throat and Frank laughs, kisses him again, and gets up on his knees to fish through the pockets of the jeans he left on the floor.

Gerard is still eyes-shut, body jangling like tremolo springs. Mikey desperately wants to touch him, soothe him, but he can't because of Frank's fucking plan.

Gerard's bitten his lip bloody. That isn't okay. 'We don't have to do this,' Mikey says softly. 'We can stop any time, Gee.'

'I don't wanna,' says Gee. 'Unless … do you want to stop?'

'No,' says Mikey like it's a prayer. 'But we don't have to do this now.'

'Like fuck you two are leaving me out of this after I choreographed the whole thing,' says Frank, wheeling around with something clutched in his fist. But he doesn't touch either of them again, and in the light of the moody bedside lamps Mikey realises Frank's watching them both like hawks.

There's a beat, a rest - 

'I don't wanna stop,' says Gerard again. He finally opens his eyes, cracks a smile that finally makes Mikey's guts unknot all the way. 'I've been so - fuck, Mikey, I nearly fucking fucked him on stage because you were watching me.'

Mikey remembers Gerard rubbing his crotch all over Frank's mouth.

'Hey, I would be up for that,' says Frank, hand finally landing on Gerard's shoulder. 'C'mon Gee, lemme in.'

Gerard makes an epic bitchface, but he drops to his knees and elbows over Mikey, pressing his face to Mikey's shoulder and sticking his ass out. Frank smiles at Mikey from over Gerard's pale, curving body, and slicks up his fingers.

It takes approximately a minute for Gerard to start cursing and shoving back towards Frank. Mikey desperately wrenches at the straps holding him down, wanting his hands back, wanting to touch what Frank's touching, wanting to steady Gerard where he's fucking himself on Frank's fingers so hard he's making the bed shake. The edges of the straps are stiff with stitching, and they start to chafe, but it's not the first time Mikey's worn himself rough against their gear, won't be the last. 

Gerard lifts his head from Mikey's chest and launches forward, kissing him hard, and that stops Mikey in his tracks. 

'I'm ready,' Gerard says, lifting his head, turning to look behind him at Frank. Mikey moans against his neck, because ready means - Frank pets his leg, and whispers, 'good boy, hey, you're doin' good. Think you're ready for him now?'

Mikey's _been_ ready. Gerard fists his hand in Mikey's hair and fucks his tongue into Mikey's mouth until Mikey forgets what breathing is like. 

'Gee?' Frank says.

Gerard throws his head back, pulls himself out of kissing Mikey like throwing himself flat on quicksand, trying to pull himself free of something that's sucking him under. 'Fuck yes. Help me, Frankie?'

'Always,' says Frank, and wraps his hand around Mikey's cock. Mikey's eyes cross. He bucks wildly, desperate to fuck, and Frank pushes him down by one hip. 'Cool it, Mikes,' he says, and he's licking his lips, his eyes are dark, and that makes Mikey feel better, because he's at the end of his goddamn rope but Frank's right there with him. Frank _wants_ , Mikey can read him like a book, and it means Mikey's not alone here. 

Gerard's panting, arching his back like the performer he is. 'Get him in me,' he growls. 'Right the fuck now, Frank. Right the fuck now.'

Frank nods at Mikey, moves his hand from Mikey's hip to the small of Gerard's back. 'You ready?' he asks again, tightly, but he doesn't wait for either of them to speak. He pushes Gerard down, down, down onto Mikey's cock, doesn't stop, doesn't let up, just slides Gerard down while Gerard's voice goes up, octave by octave. 

'Jesus fuck,' Mikey breathes, because he has to force himself to breathe, because if he passes out he'll stop feeling this and he _can't_ stop feeling this. 'Gee -'

'Yeah, Mikey?' Gerard's head is drooping, his hair is straggling down over his face and this close up Mikey can see the tiniest edge of his regrowth, close to his skull, but he picks himself up with an effort to look Mikey in the eyes. He's biting his lip. His voice is shaky, but his expression is burning so hot Mikey might catch fire. 

'Fuck, I wish I could touch you,' Mikey says, pulling at the straps again. He'd fucking _dislocate his shoulders_ if he thought it would help, but behind Gerard is Frank, Frank straddling Mikey's thighs, Frank pushing Gerard down by the nape of his neck, Frank stroking Gerard's hair and push-pulling at his hips, slow, making him ride Mikey. Or maybe holding him back. 

'Use your mouth,' Frank says, raising his eyebrow at Mikey like a dare, and Gerard's torso is right in front of him and it's blank and milk-white and hell yes, Mikey wants to use his mouth. He strains up even harder, his arms burn and his neck is gonna be a fucking mess after this, he's gonna have to play the next goddamn show sitting down because there's no way he'll be able to take the weight of his bass but Gerard's close enough, he's just about close enough and Mikey manages to lick his nipple.

'Sweet fucking _jesus_ , yes, fuck,' Gerard pants, twisting on Mikey's cock. He's taken his tempo back now, riding hard, leaning down on his own and not letting Frank control him any more. 'Bite me, Mikey, c'mon-'

Frank's still a shadow behind Gerard, dark hair and dark eyes and tattoos all smudged across his skin, scrambling forward. Mikey struggles one more time to get his teeth on Gerard, wanting to make him match Frank mark for mark just with bruises instead of ink, but it hurts, his joints are on fire, his eyes are watering but he's gotta, gotta -

Frank's fingers work at the knot on the bedpost and suddenly Mikey has his right hand free. 'Try that,' he says, curls his body up at the bedhead and helps Mikey sit up, presses kisses to Mikey's throat. 'Go get him, tiger.'

Mikey's got leverage now, hikes himself up the bed so he's sitting, not lying, and grabs Gerard around the waist, clutches him close. His other arm is still holding him back, though, and he can't help glaring at Frank, who's lounging in the warm spot where Mikey was lying, with a shit-eating grin on his face. 'Frank, fucking let me out.'

'My way or the highway,' says Frank, sliding his hand up Mikey's thigh from the knee all the way up the soft inside skin to where Gerard's ass is. 'And I think you like my way, don't you Mikes? Gee does.'

Gerard has his head buried on Mikey's shoulder now, hips still working like he's being paid, groaning out soft huffing noises, breath wet on Mikey's skin, matching Frank whose kisses have teeth and are moving up, over, til Frank's leaning over Mikey's shoulder, taking his weight and kissing Gerard, not that Gerard's giving much back, all lax and soft like he's off his head. The violence of how he was before's all gone - 

'He's gonna blow,' Frank murmurs in Mikey's ear. 'All over you. And then I'm gonna fuck you.' 

'Mmmmm,' says Gerard, rolling his body like he's dirty-dancing, still not opening his eyes. 'Wanna watch that.'

'Won't take much,' Frank says. 'Want me to show you?'

'Frank,' Mikey grits his teeth, because Gerard's clenching around him. 'Frank, I can't -'

'I got it,' says Frank, licking Mikey's neck - which is objectively gross but right now is _not helping_ Mikey keep control over his fucking dick - and reaching out for Gerard. 

All it takes is one stroke and Gerard coils up like he's been struck by lightning. Mikey digs the fingernails of his tied-up hand into his palm, his free arm looped so tight around Gerard's waist he can feel the hitching of his brother's breath, and holds the fuck on while Gerard rides out an orgasm that seems like it's gonna last an eternity. 

Afterwards Gerard is a limp perfect weight all over Mikey's chest, and they're a sticky mess between their bellies, and Mikey can't fucking breathe.

'Mikey,' Gerard murmurs. 'Mikey, _Mikey_ …'

'Shhh,' says Frank, leaning down and kissing Gerard til he quiets, and lies sprawled all over Mikey, still tight around him. 'Hold on to Gee, okay?' he tells Mikey, and starts running his fingers down Mikey's ribs.

'Mm?' Mikey manages, laying his head down, pulling Gerard close so his shuddering in the aftershocks doesn't make him slip off. Where Frank's going Mikey's too muzzy to guess, until there's wet-sticky pressure at his hole.

'Fuck, you're tight,' Frank mutters wildly, hair in his face as he looks down at where he's putting his fingers. 'Jesus I just wanna be in you so bad, Mikes, so fucking hot watching you two, finally - shit, can you take three? Mikey? You ready? Please be fucking ready Mikey cos I need -'

Mikey peels his eyes open when he realises they're clenched shut, teeth gritted, because Gerard is patting his cheek gently. 'Do it,' Gerard tells Frank, and he runs his thumb over Mikey's lower lip. 'He's so fucking hot for you right now he can't even talk, Christ.'

Frank looks at Mikey, silently checking in, but Mikey has no control left over his shuddering body, let alone his stupid face. He has no idea what Frank sees in his expression but it can't be bad because the next thing he knows he's got Frank between his thighs, his dick pushing up Mikey's ass.

Mikey isn't gonna be able to walk tomorrow. They're gonna have to bust out a fucking wheelchair or a team of pack ponies or something to get him on stage. He tastes blood in his mouth and Gerard makes some kind of noise above him but he doesn't know anything else about what's happening except that pressure inside, slow and unstoppable like the tide.

'Oh, oh,' he slowly becomes aware he's saying, _'Oh -'_

Frank's dick is riding right over his prostate and Gerard's pressing down all perfect pressure, unstoppable force and immovable object and Mikey trapped in the middle with his brains leaking out his ears and no outlet but noise.

'Feels good, huh?' Gerard murmurs, sitting up on Mikey's cock, tracing his fingers wickedly over Mikey's chest, his belly where Gerard's come is still slick like paint. The shift of his weight makes Mikey sob, the too-much-oh-god-yes of the cable-short feeling inside him flaring, like his body is a stomp box and Gerard just hit overdrive. 'Shh, hey Mikey, hey, we got you.'

Mikey wrenches his head back and clenches his nerveless fingers and tries with all his might not to -

'I wanna make him come in you,' Frank growls happily at Gerard, and he's fucking Mikey hard, has been right from the get-go, triple time from the start. He's so good at this, knows how to play Mikey's body like an instrument. He kneels up to change his angle, and it makes Mikey sob. 

Frank grins evilly at Mikey around Gerard, but he doesn't talk to him, oh no. He knows what that would do right now. Instead he moves his gaze up. 'C'mere,' he says, and he pulls Gerard back by the hair so he can kiss him.

Gerard makes a noise like he's dying and tightens his knees around Mikey's hips, his ass around Mikey's dick, but it's the sound of them kissing that does it, wet and sloppy and 'mmm's from Gerard that make Mikey quake. He comes so hard his spine arches and his neck honest to God cracks, his toes curl so hard his feet cramp, and Gerard falls forward when Frank lets him go, both hands planted on Mikey's shoulders hard. 'Ohhh, yeah,' he breathes, rolling his hips. 'Yeah Mikey, mess me up, c'mon,'

'Shit,' Frank curses, 'oh, oh fucking Christ Mikes -' and when he comes he claws at Mikey's hips like he wants to rip his way inside, his fingernails are too blunt to do real damage, but it cuts swathes of fiery colour across Mikey's vision, spots of heat, and he thinks he might know now why Frank's always looking for new more beautiful ways to hurt himself. Mikey can feel Frank's racing heartbeat through where their bodies join, feel Gerard breathing in counterpoint against him.

Gerard smirks down at Mikey and finally pulls off him, off his twitching exhausted dick. 

'Lemme free,' says Mikey, mumbling and pulling, twisting, wanting _out_ , both his hands.

'Don't you want your encore?' Gerard asks, batting his eyelashes. 

Frank starts to move again. How, Mikey doesn't know. As far as he's concerned he's part of the bed now, they've fused together. But Frank is wicked-eyed and sliding down lower and lower til - 

Mikey reaches down to stop him. 'Frank, no, that's fucking nasty, man.'

'Uh-uh,' says Gerard, catching his hand, kissing the palm soft and wet, licking up Mikey's fingers til his eyes start to cross and he forgets what he was protesting about. 'Don't knock it if you haven't tried it, little bro.'

'I -' Mikey starts, but then Gerard tugs his hand down. Down. Til his fingers find Gerard's ass and the mess he's made of it.

'You blush so pretty,' whispers Gerard, and slides three of them back into the sloppy place inside him. Mikey's hands are riddled with dead spots from grinding bass strings, had to toughen up in places to make the pain go away, but this he feels, fuck, all the way. 'You ready?'

And Frank leans in to Mikey's spread, worked-over, reamed-hot ass, and kisses his hole like he kisses Gerard on stage - all tongue and devotion. 

Mikey would still shove him away if he could, hot and embarrassed. It's gross, isn't it, fuck, he's disgusting down there and the scrape of Frank's stubble is torture and it shouldn't feel this good, it shouldn't feel this intimate, he shouldn't feel more vulnerable with someone's mouth on him than he did with their dick up his ass - 

But he's trapped again, left hand still strapped down, right hand finger-deep inside Gerard, who's using it like a freaking sex toy, holding it by the wrist, fucking himself slow and biting Mikey's ear. 

'Stop fighting,' Gerard says, licking where he's bitten, gross and soothing and confusingly hot. 'Let him take care of you.'

'But - nnnnnngh -'

'It feels good, right? Just let it feel good, Mikey. You don't have to do anything but just let it happen. He's got you.'

Mikey sags back onto the mattress. Gerard kisses him like it's a reward, a tiny sting of teeth on Mikey's lips and his tongue just tentatively slipping in where Mikey's trying to remember how to breathe. Shallow, teenage kisses, and then he backs off again, burrows his face into Mikey's shoulder and starts to ride his hand harder. Over his own heaving chest, Mikey can see Frank's knuckles, his hands holding Mikey spread, and his tongue is pushing hard, frantic, making Mikey shudder. 

He's not getting away from them, not like this, but as Frank moans against him and his tight-wound body starts to relax, unknot, and Gerard gasps, 'fuck Mikey, like that, yes, fucking yes, yes, yes, again, _please -_ ', he realises he doesn't need to. Doesn't want to.

Gerard reaches down and Mikey shocks when his dick twitches against Gerard's palm. 

'God, you're just about ready to blow again, aren't you?'

'Gee -'

Gerard rolls onto his belly and noses his way down Mikey's, Mikey's fingers slipping in him til he stops moving. He takes a breath and then presses a kiss to the head of Mikey's cock.

Frank must notice, or he's psychic, because he pulls a hand off Mikey's thighs and before Mikey knows what's happening he's got fingers inside him again, and Frank licking just the spread edges of him, biting, nose on Mikey's balls and Gerard's fucking throat opening around him, and then the world goes dark, lights down, rainbow afterimages and screaming in his ears as whatever the fuck is left of his soul gets sucked out through his dick.

It's dark in the room when he comes back to himself, dark and warm, and he's got his arms curled up around himself, a blanket tucked around his shoulders, and in the darkness and without his glasses he can't see much but there's soft noises coming from close by. 

'Frank,' Gerard's panting, 'Frank, Frankie, fuck, Frankie, yes -'

'Feel him in you?' Frank's asking, tight and low with effort. 'Your little brother's come making you all wet for me, Gee, like a fucking girl, such a good girl, so fucking hot for me.'

This time when Gerard comes Mikey gets to listen to it, properly, hear the lost-dog whine he makes on stage come through like this too, Gerard's instinctive weapon when things get too much getting pulled out here in the dark and sweaty night. Gerard flings his arms out and one of them smacks Mikey's shoulder, makes him start. He grabs at it, shifting in the blankets, and realises two things: one, Gerard's looking at him now, eyes gleaming from the sliver of brightness the digital clock throws out and two; he's still fucking sticky all over, leaking come into the sheets, the blankets catching and pulling at his tacky skin when he moves. 

Everything about this is disgusting but Gerard's right here and the part of Mikey that's been caked in cold sand and fake blood and flop-sweat since that fucking video, since they started this tour, since Japan, finally reaches far enough to grab hold. Mikey brings Gerard's hand up to his mouth to kiss it. 

'Oh _fuck_ ,' says Frank, and that noise there, that cut-off staccato, that controlled chaos, that's what Frank sounds like with Gerard, and it makes Mikey's exhausted cock twitch along his thigh. 

For some time after that, Mikey doesn't know how long, the room's just a mess of panting, groaning, sucking noises as Gerard and Frank pull apart. Mikey stays put, couldn't move if the bed was on fire, and waits for the part where they leave and he's alone in the bed again, and the void starts creeping back in. He can probably hold on to this good feeling long enough to get through another few shows, and they're gonna be making for home at the end of the month. He can make this last. He can ride this out. 

Gerard pulls himself off the bed and pads to the bathroom. Frank starts to unwrap Mikey from the burrito he's managed to make himself into. 

'Nuh-uh,' Mikey says, trying weakly to hold onto the warmth and the sensation of being held, even if it is just in a blanket. 'Fuck off, Frank.'

'Shut up,' says Frank, kissing him, because that's Frank's favourite way to make someone stop what they're doing, and managing with one yank and roll to bare all of Mikey's wet body to the air. 'Gotta clean you up, you freak.'

'Cold,' Mikey complains. The mattress dips and suddenly there's a warm, damp washcloth running over his belly. It tickles, and he squirms. 

'Oh, I like that,' says Gerard, too thoughtfully. 

'He's a fucking mess, we should be hosing him down in the shower,' says Frank, but he pushes Mikey's hips to stay flat while Gerard works. The warmth and the concentration and the grip of Frank's hands on him are hypnotic. 

Mikey lets out a little huffing moan, and gets kissed for it.

Gerard throws the washcloth away when he's done. It thuds against the wall, which Mikey kind of realises means he's gonna have to pick it up tomorrow but he's distracted from being annoyed by the way Gerard curls up against his chest. Frank lies down on the other side and gets the blanket over all of them. It smells funky. Frank is warm, and his arm loops over Mikey's belly like he's planning on -

'Night,' says Frank. His fingers drum a little beat on Mikey's hipbone, slow and meditative.

'Night,' says Gerard.

Mikey's pretty much already asleep.

***

Gerard's makeup is smudged already and Mikey knows why, ten minutes to lights up and Frank on his ripped-jeans knees with something that looks in the shadows here like a bruise on his cheek. Mikey reaches out and thumbs at it. Eyeliner.

Matches the extra words on his arms in between the ones tattooed there. Mikey knows Frank wishes Sharpie was as permanent as it says it is, knows Gerard likes that it isn't. Mikey's with Gerard on this one. He likes to wash things off and start again, over and over again.

Frank's already got Mikey's fly open. Mikey takes kinda too much pleasure in messing up his hair when he starts going down.

'You know this isn't going in your mouth, right?' Mikey asks softly. They do still gotta keep this on the downlow, and you never know where venue techs like to hide. 'You told me what you wanted.'

'Told you what you wanted,' Frank says hoarsely, pulling back. 'Just a lucky fucking coincidence we want the same shit, isn't it?'

No, it isn't, but that's Frank, nasty bandages trying to cover up all the places he's sweet when you split him open, and Mikey's weak for the right kind of mean. Mikey's so much easier to open up, he's just lucky he's got Frank and Gerard to keep their hands all over him and keep up the pressure when it happens.

'So make me do it, then,' Mikey whispers, shuddering.

Frank's grin is pure satanism. He leans back on his heels and jerks Mikey's cock for him while Mikey hangs onto the stack of packing cases behind him and prays to whatever god is out there for fuckups like him that there isn't still gear in them if he tips them over.

'C'mon, Mikes,' Frank murmurs. 'Wanna wear you out on stage with me.'

The mess Mikey leaves all over Frank's hollow bare sketched-over throat is still shining during the opening number. The heat of the lights would have dried it off but it doesn't get a chance. Gerard licks Frank clean in front of a full house of fans and then crosses the stage to Mikey and sucks on his own fingers while Ray plays his solo.

Mikey's Jag-bass has bedded in, finally. It feels good in his hands, it sounds right in his lungs, and it sits right against him when he makes space for Gerard to come stand all up in his business and sing.

When Gerard wrestles Mikey up behind Ray's amp stack while the set's being broken down afterwards, he tastes of Frank.

'You good?' he asks Mikey, hands finding their way under Mikey's shirt where there's one long scrape, two short scratches, livid pink-red against his belly in the shape of an F, right where Gerard put them two nights ago.

'Yeah,' says Mikey, shivering happily. I'm okay.'

They're going home tomorrow.


End file.
